NIC HARALAMBOUS

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Facebook makes me feel invisible

This is not a blog post about Facebook although Facebook is involved. This is a blog post about choices and the ramifications of the choices I have made.Let me begin at the start where all starts begin. I went to a single primary school from grade 1 to standard 3. I left in standard 3 for a girl - a friend - who wanted to leave my school. I went with her. I packed up my shit and left never to return to that school ever again.Yesterday I was perusing my minifeed on Facebook when I noticed some message about someone I used to know at my first primary school before I left. In fact, I didn't just know this girl, I was besotted with her back in the day and was very good friends with her.I started checking out some photos of hers from when we were in standards 2, 3, 4 and 5.I was invisible.I didn't feature in a single photo from that time. Hell, I was probably the guy taking some of the photos at that stage. But not a single photo was I a part of. This in some sense made me feel invisible. I felt as if, to these people, I never existed because I wasn't in recorded memory, Facebook or otherwise.This really made me wonder about my choices and decisions and how I have consistently been looking forward and not noticing who is looking at me and wondering where I went. This has become a trend in my life - this feels awfully honest - as I went from primary school to primary school, high school to Rhodes to my own company to a new job. At every choice I have left people behind.What happened to those people? What happened to me? And I wonder what life would be like if I had chosen to stay at my first primary school until my last year instead of cutting my time with those people short.