In his whirlwind of work energy, Noah had accomplished more than he thought possible but had run out of things to do, and he began to feel as if people were wondering why he was still hanging around. To make matters worse, on Thursday and Friday nights the on-call chief residents had pointedly asked Noah what he was doing in the hospital on-call room facility, which had a lounge area as well as multiple bedrooms. It was clear both residents were concerned that their competence was being questioned by his presence. In both instances, Noah had reassured them they were doing fine and left it at that, but there was a lingering sense they didn’t believe him.
Unfortunately, for the entire period, he’d not heard a word from Ava. He’d hoped he’d get a text or something, but by Friday he acknowledged it wasn’t going to happen. On several occasions over the last three days he had pointedly argued with himself whether he should text her or even try to call her, but on each occasion his pride had won out. He felt it was her responsibility to get in touch with him, since she was the one who had left. Under the circumstances, his reaching out would undermine the small amount of social self-esteem he was trying vainly to maintain.
But coming back to his sparse apartment did little to buoy his spirits. To him it looked worse than usual in its emptiness, which magnified his loneliness and reminded him how much he missed Ava. At the same time the situation was forcing him to question if his feelings for her were being reciprocated, as he could not imagine leaving her such a curt message if the situation had been reversed. Yet he urged himself to cut her a little slack, remembering that she was a unique, extraordinarily self-motivated individual who came from a background completely different from his, who had suffered a father’s suicide when she was in high school and a failed marriage around age twenty. He knew it was important for him to keep all this in mind because it was how he explained what he termed her “teenagelike” attachment to social media.
Thinking about Ava and her self-centeredness, he wondered if social media was making people narcissistic because of the opportunities for self-promotion or if narcissists were attracted to social media for the same reason. He knew that one of the hallmarks of narcissism was a lack of empathy, which was still how Noah viewed Ava’s terse text and her lack of follow-up communication. If Ava’s love of social media was making her egocentric, he could hold out hope that she had no idea how much emotional distress she was causing him and might very well be sincerely apologetic when told.
With nothing better to do and thinking that it would at least make him feel closer to Ava, he booted up his old laptop and went to Gail Shafter’s homepage. To his chagrin he immediately saw that Gail had posted on Friday, which meant that Ava had enough free time to be on social media yet not enough time or inclination to send him a simple text. The post was about Gail having an “OMG fabulous” opportunity to visit Washington, D.C., complete with a smiling selfie of Ava with a baseball hat covering her blond-streaked hair in front of the Lincoln Memorial and another in front of the new National Museum of African American History. At least he now knew that Ava had indeed gone back to Washington for her lobbying work. After studying the photos, which reminded him of the many in her study, Noah clicked on Gail Shafter’s fan page. He was relieved to see that at least Ava hadn’t found the time to do one of her beauty tips.
Returning to the homepage, Noah reread the post, which talked about what a treat the city was for tourists, how many fun things there were to do and see, and how it was possible to run into famous politicians, with a list of those Gail had managed to see. He then read some of the comments. It was surprising how many people responded in a single day. There were ninety-two likes and almost three dozen comments. Noah read the comments, which were interesting in their banality and how they all seemed paradoxically to exalt simultaneously individualism and tribal group think. There were even replies to the comments and even a few replies to the replies. There was no doubt in Noah’s mind that the dialogue in the virtual space was far different from how it was in the real world.
Suddenly Noah laughed in disbelief. He noticed that one of the particularly favorable comments was from Melanie Howard, meaning Ava had taken the time to comment on her own post. And then Gail Shafter had replied, praising Melanie. Knowing how intelligent Ava was, he was mystified by her behavior.
Progressively fascinated, Noah began looking at the various home pages of the people who had commented on Gail’s post, reading some of their posts, looking at the groups they favored, and clicking on their friends. It was like following a geometric progression in an endless, ever-expanding universe. In the process, he came across comments about all sorts of things, including the newsfeeds and even discussions about some of the ads that Facebook had inserted to expand their bottom line.
Since Gail Shafter and Melanie Howard were Ava’s fake profiles and not real people, he wondered if Ava had any more fake characters, and if she did, why would it be worth the effort? Following in that line of thinking, Noah began to wonder how many of the profiles he was looking at were also fakes. There was no way to know.
Going back to Gail’s homepage, Noah looked at the gender makeup of those people who had commented on Gail’s latest post. Surprisingly, he saw that it was approximately even between males and females. He had expected it would be mostly females without questioning why. Then he found himself glancing at the thumbnail photos accompanying the comments and noticed that the age of those who used photos of themselves rather than pets or infant children were roughly in the twenty-to-forty range until his eye stopped on one that he recognized. It was Teresa Puksar, a family name that Noah had never come across except on a previous visit to Gail’s Facebook page, and he wondered about its ancestry. Clicking on the photo, he went back to Teresa’s homepage. Glancing again at her risqué photos and looking at her friends, he noticed that there were very few around her age. Noah was both perplexed and put off. He questioned if Teresa’s parents had any idea what their daughter was doing on social media.