Buffering lives

Loneliness and the urge to reconnect.

A couple of days back, I was standing in my balcony. The afternoon sun was beating down on me, the weather was sweltering and humid and ironically, I could not remember the last time I stood in my balcony. But I had a motive, I wanted to socialize. So, I began scanning the other fourteen-storey buildings around my block. The scorching sun hovering over me was not as bad as the lack of “societal” response. I could catch glimpses of some houses through their fluttering curtains, the droning sound of their coolers drowning any possible human interaction. For a moment I felt like a space enthusiast, looking for life on Mars. But soon enough, a mother with her toddler stepped out onto the balcony to water her plants and for a fraction of a second, my eyes met hers. I had a strange urge to talk to this woman I had never met, knew nothing about and not to mention, whom I was rather suspiciously staring at. And mind you, I am not a particularly social person. It took years for my friends to hammer me out of my shell but I was willing to let go of all that enigma in a matter of seconds and to a woman I did not even know.

It is believed that your dreams tell you a lot about what you may secretly be yearning for, something in your subconscious is handed the microphone when you are in deep slumber and that takes over your dreams for that night. I don’t really agree with that though. Because lately I have been dreaming an awful lot about my school mates and reiterating my aforementioned point, I am not a social butterfly. I possibly cannot come to terms with the fact that I yearn to reconnect with my erstwhile school mates, whom I never bothered to stay in touch with anyway. However, this lockdown has rendered me speechless in ways more than one. I was never the kind to draw my curtains open, let alone questionably standing in the balcony, in a pool of sweat and urgency to interact with someone.

In a year that is increasingly being defined by numerous aberrations, people are beginning to renew their relationship and friendship packs at the fear of a thready social life. Old friends, old lovers, cousins, teachers, professors, students you used to coach once, all making a shoddy attempt at clawing back into each other’s lives. There are times when I find myself instinctively reaching out for my phone, opening a new chat box every day, gluttonously staring at the keypad. The need for communication takes over you to the extent where it does not matter who you are communicating with as long as there is someone to reach out to.

There is a sense of relief in just having another person online or on the line. Despite redundant conversations and long pauses where you watch the other person cluelessly staring into vacuum, there is still a sense of respite at sharing this indomitable sense of loneliness. We paint ourselves as the superior race, the one that has everything all figured out and the one coming up with all the technology and innovations. But how do I portray myself as the superior race when I have to hang myself out to dry like a damp cloth at the mercy of the wind?

I believe this year we should be prepared for some arbitrary messages and calls. The course of your day could be dictated by the thought of why that old school friend suddenly texted you after two whole years or why you suddenly wish to text them. I think we are all in the process of getting over the buffering, i.e., this year. Be it in the garb of unleashing a verbal diarrhea on social media or the instinctive phone a friend act, we are trying to devise ways and means to douse this infernal solitary existence. Until then, I guess the balcony is my best shot.