Pretend You Haven’t Heard

 

This weekend I’m practicing a new art – the art of “pretending I haven’t heard.”  “Pretending you haven’t heard what?” you ask.  Well, everything.  When I was pregnant with my daughter I went to my five year high school reunion, and the thing that I heard more than anything else was “I’ve been following your pregnancy on Facebook!”  When I was pregnant with my son, I posted nothing about it on Facebook, on my blog, nowhere.  When people saw me with a baby they said “Oh, I had no idea you were even pregnant!”

And that, folks, is the way it should be.  You see, telling someone you’ve been cyber-stalking them, even passively through social media is a conversation stopper.  If you already know all about my pregnancy, my business, what kind of shoes I like, and my political leanings, what do we have to talk about?  It’s much better to pretend you haven’t been watching me, and what I’ve been up to, so you can ask me about it. Then I can tell you.  And we can have a conversation.

I did a little of this practice earlier in the week when I ran into my old college roommate, who coincidentally married my middle school best friend and has a baby boy that is eight days younger than my son.  I’ve seen some of this on social media, but since I haven’t seen him in twelve or so years, I’d rather hear it from him.  He suggested a playdate for the boys after we’d spent a few minutes catching up – hopefully he meant this in a non-Seattle sort of way (which is to say, actually meant it).

Tonight I go to a rehearsal dinner for my stepdad’s wedding, and tomorrow is the wedding (now do you see why I’m posting photos of wedding favors with this post?).  I’m hoping the family and friends I haven’t seen in years will ask me what I’ve been up to, rather than assuming that they know based on what I post online.  I’ll pretend I haven’t heard, so you can tell me yourself.  Because, after all, isn’t there more to us than our social media accounts?

xo

C

ps: for the wedding we made 117 Mason Jar Lanterns with the bride & groom’s initials and the wedding date.  Tired hands, awesome favors, that obviously can be used for other things! Here are some more pictures.  And they can be purchased on Moxieandoliver.com.