A few days ago, I received a direct message from a friend who I had last seen and talked to in the early 80s. By his selected profile picture alone, I might offer a guess that he might have already outlasted the one who shot the photo. Despite his youthful pic (that was most probably taken at Agudo’s), he must actually be in his 80s right now and he had come to ask me for a favor.
Just recently, he said his favorite grandson had transferred to another state in order to live in with his girlfriend. Because of this, there was no one else left to help him manage his social media account. This was what he had been using for communicating with friends and relatives from “the old country”, he explained. Without hesitation, I asked how exactly could I help my much older amigo. He’s from South America living in the US by the way, and we met during my NGO days (but that’s TMI already).
I told him the Messenger stuff (which we were using at the moment) was relatively easy; just a simple chore of following prompts, clicking at intended icons and looking for green dots to see who were online or awake. In many ways, he was a beginner still, he intimated… just being able to log in, log out plus other basic commands. He had then left all the other social media stuff, like photo editing, adding effects and such to his great apo whom he admittedly had already missed and wanted to immediately chat with right after our conversation. To boast off his new learnings, he beamed.
As usual, after every business and whenever all pleasantries are one by one done away with, what usually comes next is the deeper probing of how-are-yous. It is here where each one is obligated to tick in an answer as a reciprocal offering. (Best profile pic forward if you may, on this one.)
I guess there is a grain of truth in the old saying about old people not anymore being easily fooled. We see through coverups as though they were weren’t intentionally hidden and as an example of this, the issue of loneliness in old age cannot easily be masked, even with high school days profile pics.
As though to validate this, he said, “One of the greatest things my apo has done for me, he had filled my Photo section of my Facebook with a lot of photo memories. Whenever I miss anyone in the family, I would swipe down through the hundreds of family photos and albums and get lost in thought.”
I told him, I do the same sometimes, appreciating how children have all grown and how my own family has evolved. I then asked, it cold outside where you are? And he replied, Too cold. Well then, after we’ve said goodbye, switch to your photo section and swipe downward now.
