Twenty-three Likes

Gladys Weatherly had survived many difficult trials throughout the first fifty years of her life. When she was four years old, she broke her arm after falling off a chair. What Gladys remembered most about the incident were the comments she heard afterwards from well-meaning adults: “You’re so lucky you didn’t bump your head.” “You’re so lucky it was your left arm.” “You’re so lucky it will be good as new.” Gladys didn’t feel lucky at all every time the reoccurring throbbing pain plagued her throughout her life.

When Gladys was seven, her parents divorced, and she never saw her beloved father again. Her mother refused to discuss the situation. Gladys felt abandoned and insecure. This was also around that time that she began wetting the bed. After having an accident at a slumber party, she was teased and shunned. From then on, at school she hung back in the shadows, convinced that her horrifying humiliation would never be forgotten.

A few days after Gladys celebrated her tenth birthday, two policemen came to the door and took her sixteen year old brother, Robert, away. At any mention of Robert’s name, Gladys’ mother became stern and stony. Gladys didn’t dare ask her what became of Robert. She just knew there was something dark and disturbing about his leaving.

Gladys grew up, got married, and was once again abandoned—this time by her husband of four months who simply walked out the door one autumn day. Gladys soon began having frequent nightmares in which her husband and/or her father glared disapprovingly at her and said she was a naughty little girl. Or they laughed at her and called her worthless as they walked out the door over and over and over.

Her mother passed away; Gladys was deserted once more. Every night she sat in her tiny, dim studio apartment in New York City. Every night surviving--and only just that.

For nearly thirty years, Gladys had been employed by a small company which contracted to clean various office buildings. She made ends meet. She met a few other nice-enough employees, but every night when she dragged back to her simple refuge, she sat rigid in her only chair for hours She ached to hold a husband, a baby, a friend, but her arms were empty, and her heart was broken.

Two days after Gladys turned fifty, a turn of events made it possible for her to realize a kind of joy. A distant Uncle had died and left her a “tidy sum.” With her propensity for frugality, she realized that the money would likely last her a lifetime. She shared the news with four acquaintances from work and gave her notice. But before her final day, Lydia, the kind one, convinced Gladys that she should get a computer to keep her company and to help her stay in touch with world events. She helped Gladys set it up: showed her the basics of Word, Goggle and Facebook. Lydia invited several women from work to be Gladys’ friends. Four of these women immediately replied and sent brief messages of encouragement. The world began to open up for Gladys. She had friends. She was not alone.

Gladys approached her relationship with these four Facebook friends with both enthusiasm and a kind of reverence. She felt a profound sense of solemn responsibility to be helpful and considerate. She spent over two hours writing lengthy replies and waited eagerly to hear back from them. Gladys soon found the courage to invite four more people. Three confirmed. Gladys felt like a part of a group. She belonged. She was in the loop.

As the weeks went on, Gladys acquired more and more friends. She finally had to keep her replies shorter than at first, but she made certain to respond to everyone. If someone was having a bad day, she would send messages of hope and care. When she saw pictures of babies, pets or vacations, she would promptly reply, telling her friends how cute, how adorable, and how fun. Sometimes she was the only one replying, but often her comments joined with comments from other friends—a real conversation of sorts.

Months passed by. Gladys hardly had time to eat and began going to bed later and later. She had so many friends. So many! By the end of each day, her shoulders ached after being hunched over her keyboard for hours. Some days she felt drained and weak, but she would never dream of letting her friends down. Never.

Hundreds of friends. Hundreds! So many pictures to comment on. So many people to cheer up. So many condolences to write. And congratulations. And words of encouragement. And people were inviting her to be their friends. Inviting her! She confirmed and confirmed.

Gladys continued to faithfully fulfill her commitment to her friends. There she sat everyday: Typing. Composing. Replying. Inviting. Confirming. Caring. Very often, morning light would slip in through the window, leaving her to wonder what had become of the night. There was no one in her apartment to gently rub her shoulders and whisper, “It’s late. Come to bed, my dear.” Nor were there pets to walk. No phone to answer. No dinner engagements. No club meetings. No Church gatherings. And no children to hold or teach or love. Even with all her Facebook friends, Gladys sometimes felt lonely. During these times, she spent even longer hours inviting more friends and working more diligently to write well thought out replies to anyone who sent her a message.

One Tuesday night after hours of reading and replying, Gladys was again physically drained. She put her fingers on the keyboard and for the first time posted a message of her own rather than simply a reply. Sometimes I am so weary, I want to die. POST. There it was, her unexpected cry.

Gladys was quickly embarrassed that she had posted something personal and depressing, but within minutes, up popped three replies. Three friends wrote words of comfort and support. After that, she began to notice the likes: two, now seven, now fifteen. With each like, Gladys sank in despair. She froze in place as she saw the likes growing. Every tortuous event in her life burned through her mind: pain, abandonment, disappointment, grief and loneliness--above all, loneliness.

At her final count, twenty-three of her friends had responded with like to her desperate post. For Gladys, this implied that twenty-three friends were happy that she wanted to die. Twenty-three liked that she was depressed. Twenty-three friends. Twenty-three.  She was betrayed and abandoned again. Again.

As new comments and likes continued to trickle in, unread, Gladys slipped awkwardly from her chair, her breathing becoming tortured and ragged. As she hit the floor, her eyes shot open wide with surprise at the irony that her defeat finally came about by something so benign. After years of battling demons, a simple Facebook post was her undoing.