Swipe Up

I’m an awkward communicator by nature. I’ve always found it hard to express exactly what I mean verbally - which is probably why writing is my poison of choice. Because of my difficulty with verbal expressions, for most of my teenage life, I’ve felt like I don’t fit in with my peers the same way I see others fit. I can communicate with adults just fine, I know how to play the game in front of a debate crowd or as a leader, but when it comes to interpersonal communication with people my age? I’m about as useful as a rock.

The pinnacle of awkwardness, however, is compliments. It’s easy for me to think compliments and to run through exactly what I would say to someone when I like their outfit. Communicating that is another story entirely. I get tripped up in the delivery of it all: am I being too snarky? Insincere? Will she think I’m trying too hard to be nice? What if I’m actually a really mean person, but giving compliments to people is the way I convince myself I’m not… and so on, and so forth. Essentially, I’ve always viewed myself as unrelatable and hard to get along with outside of the world of academia. When quarantine hit, there was a strange sense of relief in the idea that all human contact, from that point on, would be conducted virtually. I wouldn’t have to deal with the weird shuffle I perform when standing in front of someone shorter than me, my eyes wouldn’t have to struggle with where to look when speaking to a mutual friend. For the same reasons so many others were dreading quarantine, I was secretly loving it. 

And then, of course, that love wore out. Avoiding communication or communicating solely over a virtual sphere solved the problem of awkwardness, yes, but it also made me more lonely. I have to figure out a better way to do this, I thought. Texts became less sporadic, with the occasional FaceTime thrown in, but overall, I was at a loss for how I was supposed to function as a communicative human and play to my written strength as well. Think, I urged myself, Think, the entire world is in the palm of your hands. There has to be something you can do. 

And then, it happened. The briefest of accidents became a kiss of destiny: I swiped up on a friend’s Instagram story. Revolutionary, I know. I was puzzled by how the slipping of my hand could contribute to such an epiphany, but as I thought it through, it made more and more sense. Instagram DMs: they’re short, easy to respond to, and a written way to express my feelings and let the world know that I’m still here. Huzzah! I was trigger-happy and ready to swipe up on every appealing story. I hadn’t realized how much I missed talking to my peers, awkward as it was. You don’t want to be creepy, though, I reasoned with myself. Excited as I was, I had to remember that I wasn’t as social of a being as I wanted to be at that moment. I leveled my expectations of myself, setting a small goal: I could swipe up on one or two stories a day for the next week, just to test the water. If people were as hungry for communication as I expected they were, I felt that my swiping up wouldn’t be seen as weird or a romantic advancement. I wanted to bring normalcy to my definition of the Instagram DM, and using it for compliments and small comments on story posts would be the way to do that. 

I started small, swiping up on the stories of my closest friends first. There were a few stories that qualified as immediately worthy of a response in the early days: cute dogs, cute outfits, and music recommendations. 

“OMG LOOK AT THAT DOG, AMAZING!” Did you come off too strong with the all-caps?

“AHAHA THANK YOU I LOVE HER!!” Oh, okay, they reciprocated the all-caps. Am I supposed to respond to the message, or just give it a heart? I’ll just give it a heart. I don’t want to be strange.

I hyper-analyzed my use of the swipe up feature. I obsessed over the way I was speaking with my friends and whether or not I was embarrassing myself. Do normal people even swipe up on stories? Is it normal to react to those? Anxiety ran rampant in my mind. I was so desperate to reach out to the people I used to interact with, but I equally felt like a complete stranger. Quarantine rewrote the rules! I used to be able to get by with my spotty eye contact and restless hands, but Instagram DMs were a different frontier. Who writes the rules for how teenagers are supposed to communicate on social media?

I took a step back from my situation. I was getting too involved in my hyper-active fears; I needed to decide what exactly my goal in communication was, and I needed to decide how I was going to execute it. The things I wanted were: 1.) to maintain contact with my important friends and peers, 2.) to live my life with at least a little bit of human contact, and 3.) to send my love and support to the people who needed it in a time of disunity. The resources I was working with were: 1.) Instagram DMs, 2.) text, and 3.) calling?? FaceTiming?? With my lists made, I reaffirmed my need for other people. I could do this. I’m in my element, writing is my thing. I made a habit of working through stories daily and responding to the ones that I genuinely had a response for. 

“That’s such a pretty dress, I miss you! I hope you’re doing well.”

“I WANT TO PET YOUR DOG SO BADLY AHHHH.”

“Please let me know if you need anything or how I can help you. Sending lots of love your way.”

In a lot of ways, my responses to stories were crafted the same way I would craft a story or poem: consider my audience, consider the mood I want to convey, and pick the right words to put it all into place. Unlike in-person communication, I could take my time with virtual messaging. I had my dictionaries and thesauruses at my fingertips, I had all the time in the world to consider exactly what I wanted to say.

And slowly but surely, it all became less formulaic. I focused less on being exact and more on reaching out and making sure my friends knew I was still here. I swiped up on more and more stories, commenting both because I had something to say, but also because it felt good just to throw my words out there as an anchor, a line they could come back to if they needed me. 

I’ll say, it’s still not perfect. I stumble with my words often and I still find myself feeling awkward or shy when reaching out to someone I haven’t spoken to in a while. But the bottom line is this: Instagram DMs have provided me an outlet to reclaim communication. I’ve connected with friends that I haven’t spoken to in years, just in a number of words. Brief compliments have spun into conversations that span hours and take their course naturally. I’ve learned to find comfort and unity in the advantages of instant messaging, and honestly, quarantine has helped me grow as a communicator in general. I can’t say that, if and when life in-person returns to some kind of normal, I’ll be good at speaking to people face-to-face, but I’ll have the confidence necessary to pull it off. Quarantine and Instagram DMs have taught me the value of speech, and how much people enjoy talking to each other about anything under the sun. In many ways, for me at least, quarantine has been a communicative blessing in disguise.