Reasons Why I Imagine You Didn’t “Like” My Post
You didn’t see it.
You like to space out your “likes,” and you’ve already hit your quota, which I shouldn’t take personally.
Too many new “like” options, and you can’t pinpoint your emotional state, which (no big deal) negatively impacts my emotional state.
What I posted makes you envious, and you can’t rise above your envy to flatter my ego.
You don’t want people to know that you check social media as often as you check social media, and to “like” my post would be to destroy the facade.
You’re suspended in a binge-watching fugue.
You’re trying to curate your feed in such a way so that you’re no longer living in a bubble/echo chamber.
You didn’t see it because the algorithm deemed my post unworthy of your attention.
The algorithm’s punishing me because I didn’t pull off the correct ratio of confidence, insecurity, deference, worthiness, and unworthiness, for which I don’t know what I was thinking.
The algorithm’s teaching me a lesson about being just to the left of humble, a smidgen arrogant, upwards of diffident, a trifle too self-effacing, and overly self-dwelling.
In the past I haven’t affected the necessary absorption in other people’s vacations, other people’s cries for attention, and social media won’t let me get away with it.
My post has so many “likes” already that you feel that your “like” won’t count and that your voice doesn’t matter because you weren’t born here.
Posts with too many “likes” are clogging the top of your feed, and you can’t be bothered to scroll past the posts that need a few goddamn seconds to load and who can blame you.
I posted during a “low-traffic” period and in the future will be more aware of better times to post, like between 11am-12:30pm EST; or during dinner with the person or persons from whom you’re drifting away because of the phone; or in that window of opportunity when you say you’re only going to check social media “for five minutes” before bed and then you look up two hours later and what happened was you kept scrolling and scrolling because there is no bottom, just the illusion of a bottom, and now you’re wide awake and most vulnerable to my post.
Because I didn’t post a video of my twin toddlers in matching outfits farting simultaneously.
You’re taking a break from social media, which good luck to you.
You vowed to get off social media because not one but two people you’ve dated posted photos of themselves beside someone else objectively better-looking than you with a diamond ring emoji as the caption.
You feel a “like” isn’t sufficient; you prefer to comment but don’t have time to comment, because you think you’re better than me, and you’re not wrong, which is something I plan to address at SoulCycle.
Our relationship is such that if you like something I post, then you feel you should text me about your reaction of enjoyment (since it’s more intimate and an accurate reflection of what we mean to each other after all these years), and you’re working on your interpersonal relationships by not clicking to connote feeling, and also we’re having an affair and can’t leave a paper trail.
Because you have forsaken me and are letting me know like this.
Because you were popular in high school and now that we don’t live in the same state, this is how you keep me in my place.
Because my post isn’t a floating hand with a ring on it, nor a baby bump, nor a positive pregnancy test, nor a box of unused tampons thrown in the trash alluding to your very good news.
Because “liking” or not liking isn’t what you’d envisioned for your life or for society, and you’re working to change the system from within.
You’re a new parent and read about innovative self-praising in a parenting book, and you’re practicing not praising others, and you see this as a growth opportunity for me, which fuck off.
You hate to think of me becoming more and more distanced from my highest self, prostrated by whatever’s trending, so by not “liking,” you believe I’ll learn the hard way to treat myself as I wish you’d to treat me, with magnanimity expressed in frivolous gestures.
You know that I’m working on feeling good about myself and believing in myself and also falling in love with myself, so you won’t give me your validation because you know I don’t need it.
Obviously it’s because I worded it all wrong and will never be good enough.
We’ve divorced, and you’re no longer contractually obligated to “like” my posts, no matter how salient, resonant, and provocative they are.
Because I am barren.
You’re busy (but you’re busy in the way that everyone is busy, so I don’t understand).
Best-case scenario, something very bad has happened to you.
Because we’re facing nuclear holocaust and none of this matters and we’re all just screaming into a void.
Because you just didn’t like it, which I find extremely hard to believe.
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Elissa is the editor of the Funny Women column on TheRumpus.net, and her writing and jokes have appeared in The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. She teaches “That’s What She Said: A Humor Writing Workshop” at The New School and Catapult (check out upcoming classes). Follow her on Twitter @ElissaBassist, and visit elissabassist.com for literary, feminist, and personal criticism.
