A Case For Social Media (From Someone Who Hates It)

After my (now ex) boyfriend cheated on me, just three months after he begged me to go Facebook official with our relationship and tell the world (read: our intermingled social circles) of our love, I was too ashamed to stay on Facebook. I deactivated my account the same day I broke up with him.

I was mortified. Here I was, humiliated by the man I thought loved me, the man I knew I loved, in front of our entire world. And what’s more, his cheating was indiscriminate — committing heinous sexual acts with anyone he could find on Tinder, and then coming home and kissing me. At 22 years old, I had never been in a relationship significant enough to change my Facebook status. Having the first one that did, fail so miserably, was a profound blow to my pride.

I stayed off the platform for two and a half years. I needed to heal. I couldn’t face my community — filled with happy, oblivious lovebirds and an entire church who refused to vindicate me — with anything less than disgust. I hated the happiness of those around me. Moreover, I hated a church that betrayed me, and every Christian within it. I wanted nothing to do with any of them.

I finally returned to Facebook one month ago, hopeful that my hiatus had proven healing. I asked my mother to reactivate my profile before I got on, and block every one of my ex-boyfriend’s family members. I worked for his mother for a year after we broke up. The damage she did to me was worse than her son ever could have, and I didn’t want to see her face ever again.

Once my mother completed her task, I returned to the platform, trudging through the task of removing all evidence of him. I scrolled down my timeline, looking for his first comment with baited breath, afraid of the rush of memories that would intoxicate me at first glance of his name. I was surprised by joy instead.

With each deletion I made, peace grew more and more apparent, and I found myself thanking the God I once cursed that I had been saved from such a monster. The past two and a half years have been a time where I have questioned, intensely, the love of God. Even in such a time of doubt, I was certain, if only for a moment, of His love for me. My confidence in Him ebbs and flows, but in this time of need, He was there for me.

After I took out the trash that was my former relationship, I took a look around, thinking that surely my suffering was unique. After all, life for most people was sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. I owned the corner on the market in suffering. Right?

Wrong.

I saw people going through divorces, people battling cancer. I saw sisters burying brothers, wives burying husbands, mothers welcoming profoundly disabled children into the world. I saw pain — great and terrible pain — and while I grieved with those who ached, I became increasingly aware of just how inconsequential my suffering was. Yes, what I had been through was difficult. I felt just as betrayed by God as anyone else. But when affronted by the scales of pain, the suffering that I formerly considered so uniquely heavy suddenly felt unusually light.

After such a significant hiatus, the platform I once hated increased in fondness in my heart. And, for the first time in two and a half years, I felt maybe just a little bit less alone. We were all suffering, but we were all together in it.

I advocate for social media, not as someone who formerly used the platform to make my “friends” aware of my significance; my success. Rather, I advocate for social media because when we share our suffering with one another, it makes us feel a whole lot more together. A whole lot smaller, but a whole lot more seen. More loved. And maybe just a little bit more whole, too.

And as for me? Well, let’s just say maybe the God we speak of really does love me, after all.