Socially Awkward (3 page)

Or, rather, my social networking project.

Dr. Brinkley had inspired me with
something good, a clear way to demonstrate how the internet allowed people to be hypocritical. And what effect anonymity played on social interactions on the web. If there was a way to do this, and have fun, I was willing to try almost anything. 

I closed my eyes, trying to get back that image of the improved version of myself. The
beautiful
hair, the
toned
arms, the
muscle
definition. This new version of me that would exist (
maybe someday
) in reality, but could also exist (instantly) in the virtual world. But how to get her out there?

It was right about then that Claire burst through my front door
, as she has been known to do from time to time
.
Living a town away seems to offer me very little protection from her sisterly drop-ins.

“Hey Jen,” she said, pulling me out of the brain of my imaginary identity. “How’s the project coming?”

“How do you do that?” I answered, a bit ruffled.

“What?”

“Always know what I’m thinking about?”

“Duh, I’m your sister.”
Claire answered, with one hand on her hip.
“Also, you’re sitting in front of your laptop on a Google
search
page for ‘social anonymity and the internet.’
Even
John Edwards could read you right now.”

I filled her in on my idea in Dr. Chase’s class earlier in the week and my inspiration to “pretend” to be someone else. I clicked through a few of the Google search results links while I talked, b
ut couldn’t find anything useful to back me
.

“It’s probably hopeless, though,” I sighed, blowing a strand of hair out of my face. “I can’t really find any other projects to support it. I don’t even know what framework to use for something like this.”

“Oh my God, Jen!
I’ve got it!
” she said, slapping my shoulder.
“
You should make a fake Facebook profile! You can be, like, a supermodel or something and try to friend random people. And then, with your real profile, you can try to friend the same people and see how their reactions are different.”

I had to give it to Claire. On paper, the premise was perfect. Her endless fountain of ideas, it seemed, had finally turned up a lucky penny. And that’s mo
re or less how my final paper,
The Effects of Social Media on Human Interaction
,
was born
.

“Good title,” says my Mom, still paying loyal attention to my rambling story. “Is it finished?”

“We’re getting there, Mom,” I say patiently, trying to tuck my chilly toes into the fleece blanket.
“The problem is, it’s a whole lot more than a paper right now. And that was never supposed to happen.”

CHAPTER THREE

I didn’t waste much time getting started
after that
. With only a few months left before my deadline, I couldn’t afford to spend any more time grueling over the details. So t
he next day, I dug into the creation of my new fake profile in earnest. I picked a random name that could belong to either someone totally normal or someone
crazy famous: Olivia Saunders.
I decided that, if I got
to play pretend and be someone
totally
fake
, then I might as well go all out.  As I typed in my new name, I actually got chills. A whole new me, with full control over every single detail of my life.  It was truly exhilarating.

Crafting a whole identity from scratch, I fashioned Olivia as an army brat with a diverse list of random skills, fluent in three languages, and with a career in modeling. To be totally cliché, I also made her an aspiring actress.
I listed
her
current city as Boston, Massachusetts, but
the
hometown I left blank, due to all of Olivia’s
family’s
moves.
I checked the box that she
was a female and sure, I decided to “show my sex in my profile.” Do people really keep that a secret? Why?

I made up a random birthday for my new fake self. But then, given the option, I decided to only show the month and day on my profile, although I have already decided
that Olivia is 27, just like me. In her line of work, she might not want people to know she was within throwing distance of age 30.
I hardly wanted people to know that, and I don’t consider myself half as vain as I would expect someone like Olivia to be.

Next
, I clicked that Olivia is interested in men and women. Why not?
She might just be that kind of open-minded girl.
At the very least, wouldn’t it attract a wider range of, ahem, interested parties?
For
her spoken
languages, I entered English, which is a given, as well as Spanish and German. Perfect. I don’t speak anything but my native ton
gue, but I always wished I did.
I just hoped no one would try to chat with me in Spanish or German, or I’d be spending a lot of time on Google Translator.

For the time being, I skipped the About Me section, deciding to wait until I had more time to make up something that sounded at least moderately interesting. Maybe Olivia was raised as a circus performer. Was she an award-winning country line dancer? No, too isolating, especially in New England. What if I trained polar bears? The endless possibilities were just too much to handle all at once.

Instead, I kept going, typing in exotic things like “gourmet French cooking” as one of my
h
obbies and
i
nterests. I just typed away until I got to Relationship Status. I thought for a minute, chewing on a hang nail, and decided to keep my options open. Olivia’s relationship status would be single. That was one thing the real me and the fake me could agree on.

Profile picture. That was a problem. Okay, so I had lots of pictures of me, but they didn’t look like the

blonde-haired, green-eyed Olivia Saunders I’d been imagining in my head. I’d have to ask Claire for help fudging this important detail. She would know how to
make it look good.

So I called her and told her she had to come over right after work to help me.

I clicked through a few more screens, entered a handful of responses, saved my changes and tada! My new fake profile went live, just like that, ready to be friended by the strangers of the universe. Still, that empty picture box with an androgynous silhouette stared back at me from the screen. 

I was eager to see how the virtual world
would
receiv
e
the new, improved me: Olivia Saunders, model and actress. As the other half of the project, I would pit her profile directly against my
own
real
-life
one. I made a list of suggested names—men and women who looked fake
themselves
and a few normal-looking ones here and there—and sent friend requests to them from both Olivia and myself.  I typed the names into a spreadsheet, noted the date, and waited to see which boxes I could check. Would one profile appeal over another? Would Olivia’s “exotic” and exciting life be perceived as more enticing? Did it matter that these people didn’t know either of us at all?
With nothing left to do but wait,
I started poking around Olivia’s profile.
I took a few surveys, liked a few supermodels’ fan pages, and made a list of some groups she might like to join.

Just as I was getting bored, my sister arrived
.

“Hey, Claire!” I greeted her with a hug and an ear-to-ear grin.

She eyed me suspiciously.
“
So what’s this super-important task that only I can help you with?
”

I took a deep breath then cracked a wide grin.
“Want to Photo Shop me into a hot chick?”

“Come on, Jen. Haven’t we talked about the negative effects of your self-deprecating humor enough already?” Claire rolled her eyes, settling in comfortably on my couch.

“Well, if I can’t laugh at myself…”

I mean, nobody’s perfect. When I looked in the mirror, I could admit that I had a nice smile, pretty eyes, and a generally pleasant appearance. I didn’t
hate
myself, but I definitely saw room for improvement. Especially if my hair wasn’t covering those hearing aids.

“There’s a difference between finding the humor in life and laughing
at
yourself, Jen. Why can’t you just use a picture of yourself? What’s this
hot chick
nonsense anyway?” Claire reached over to the arm of the couch, seizing my latest issue of
Cosmopolitan
and flipping mindlessly through the pages.

“Well,” I began, sitting gingerly into my desk chair. “
The whole point of this project is to try to attract people to be my friend. I can’t exactly do that when I look like…”

Claire’s head
rose
slowly from the magazine, her gaze locking in on me. “Like
what
?”

“Like this!” I said, gesturing emphatically up and down my body. “Do you really think any guy is going to friend me looking like this? A big, frumpy…”
“Stop it, already. You’re not frumpy. There’s nothing wrong with you, okay? You’re smart, pretty, funny…”

“And overweight, Claire. I’m the fat sister.”

She opened her mouth to chide me again, but froze mid-thought.
“Hey,” she straightened up, leaning forward. “What’s that on your shirt?”

I looked down, ready to swat away some giant bug or something, and spotted it. It wasn’t alive,
nor had it ever
been, as far as I could tell. And it should’ve been in my mouth, not on my shirt.

“It’s just a crumb from my lunch, Claire,” I shrugged, keeping my eyes carefully averted. As I raised my hand to brush it off, she grabbed my wrist in the air. Wow, she can move fast
…

“That looks like chocolate cake. Is that…” Her eyes widened as she held my stare. “Oh, Jen! Is that from a cupcake?”

And just like that, Claire set loose on my kitchen, opening every cabinet and drawer, even checking the fridge. She pulled out a whole bunch of carbo-loaded, fat-laden, tasty morsels that I’d been stockpiling for my last year of grad school.
I watched in horror as she tossed them all with wild vengeance into my trash barrel.

“Claire! Stop it!” I held my arms out, not sure what to do, what to rescue from certain doom, or how to stop her. “Leave me alone, Claire!”

She rounded on me, clutching a gigantic bag of gummy bears in two white-knuckled hands. “Do you really need these, Jen? Is it worth it to stuff your face with this, then turn around and make fun of yourself for being overweight?”

Stunned, I let my arms fall to my sides. I knew in my brain that she was right, but I also knew in my heart that I’d eaten that Hostess cupcake—the one whose dirty, shameful crumb had gotten me busted in the first place—without even knowing it. I’d hidden the wrapper in the trash, down below a banana peel and an empty low-fat chip bag, just in case Claire spotted it. All of this I did regularly on autopilot, staring mindlessly at a computer screen or lost in thoughts about a life that wasn’t mine.

The truth was, I just didn’t know how to be any other way.

“Claire, please. I’m not…” Tears welled in my eyes but I fought to keep them contained.

“I just want to help you,” she said, letting the gummy bears fall to the kitchen floor. “I didn’t want to upset you. It just hurts me to hear you talk about yourself like that when you could change it, and you don’t.
Come here.”

She held out her arms to me, my beautiful and loving big sister, and I went to her. I hugged her, signaling my forgiveness, and bit down on those tears until they stopped threatening to spill.

“I know, Claire,” I said, when I was confident that my voice wouldn’t crack. “But I’m not ready to do this. I know it’s dumb, but I can’t stop it now, Claire. It’s too much.
Just let me finish with school and maybe I’ll be ready then, okay?
”

Claire let the topic drop for the time being, leaving
the junk food wherever it had landed, strewn about my little galley kitchen. She released me from her embrace and shooed me back into the living room.

Within mere minutes, I had gotten her out of rampage mode and back on track to help me. I knew she only wanted what she
believed w
as best for me, but she should know by now that pushing me does nothing. When I was ready, I’d let her know. In the meantime, there was a whole new person waiting to be crafted. Well, cropped, touched up, and airbrushed, anyway.

So I made Claire take a picture of me with my back to the camera, my face turned to the side dramatically. She took it in black and white, so you couldn’t tell that my mousy brown hair wasn’t really dirty blonde or that my brown eyes weren’t green. 

“I don’t think we should change this picture. It looks really good just as it is, you know?” Claire tried once again, more feebly this time, to dissuade me from my Photo Shop mission.

“Look, Claire,” I said, exhaling. “Regardless of your feelings on my self-image problems, Olivia’s profile picture can’t look like me. If I’m going to try to friend the same people with two different Facebook accounts, the photos have to look different enough that no one is suspicious.”

Mollified, at least for the time being,
Claire pulled out her laptop to work her graphic design magic on the photo.
I stood over her shoulder, giving her instructions for every single part of my body. We trimmed things away, enlarged some others (ahem), and put the curves in all the right places.
Within an hour, dowdy and boring Jennifer Smith became hot, smoldering Olivia Saunders—a model/hopeful actress/diner waitress.  My sister, although resistant to do so, had shaved off about
3
0 pounds from my frame and basically added them all to my breasts.  Olivia looked nothing like me.

She was perfect, at least to me.

“Um, Jen,” Claire said, studying the finished product with her head tilted to the side. “You do know who this looks like, right?”

I looked at the picture hard, squinting my eyes. All I could see was the image I’d crafted back in Dr. Brinkley’s exam room. The New Jennifer that I was going to aspire t
o become, one day. Eventually.
For now, t
here she was, peeking at me from over her slender shoulder.

“It looks like
how I picture Olivia, Claire… W
hat am I missing?”

Claire shook her head, looking away. “Nothing. It just reminded me of somebody…”

“Huh,” I shrugged my shoulders and nudged her off my desk chair. “Can I post it now?”