A Nobody

“Life should be intercourse, not masturbation.”
That’s her response when I tell her I’ve deleted my FaceSpace account.
 I’m tired of reading about hackers stealing people's identities, I tell her. I’m tired of being the internet’s concubine. I’m tired of all the updates. The lack of privacy. The Spam. You name it.
 With so many lives to keep track of, I’d begun to lose sight of my own.
 So no more pictures of ex-girlfriends, I tell her. No more reminders of their new boyfriends. No more Shakespearian exploitation in 140 characters or less.
 “But how will you stay connected?” she asks, this girl I’ve just met at the coffee shop downtown. We’re sitting at small, round tables in the corner, surrounded by yellow wallpaper and high-definition screens. The one behind me lists the day’s specials. The rest run stock tickers and sports highlights and news coverage of big businesses trouncing the little guys. But this redhead seems too preoccupied with her CrackBerry to notice it all. She’s calmly looking up her horoscope while simultaneously texting her boss.
 “Connected,” I laugh. The thing is- I don’t want to ‘stay connected.’ I want to disconnect. “What on earth did people do before FaceSpace…?”
 “I can barely remember,” she says. “But you’ve got to embrace innovation. Embrace the perks of social networking. Or else you might end up alone, living the masturbator’s life.”
 She tweaks a smile to one side and mechanically draws the coffee to her lips, her elbow never breaking its rigid right angle. She taps a dime-sized device in her ear she answers, “Hello?...No…I already emailed that over…Tuesday…He does?...What’s his profile?...Ok…I’ll send a request immediately…Affirmative.” She taps her ear again. A blue light flickers. Looking at me she apologizes and asks, “Where were we?”
 “Nowhere. I don’t even know your name.”
 “Why do you want to know my name?” she sneers. “I haven’t been asked that in ages.”
 “You don’t see something wrong with that?”
 She comes back with, “What’s in a name? All of my friends have profiles and the guys I usually date- well, I hate to tell you this but, they’re all online, too. I’m in touch with the world from right here in this coffee shop.”
 Watching her recheck her CrackBerry, which she’s encased in a space-aged plastic made to withstand nuclear winter, I realize I’m the only person in the coffee shop not plugged into some wall, or entranced by some cell phone. The only person here to simply drink coffee. Disconnected from everyone and everything.
 A nobody.