Facebook and flashbacks

Yesterday, I looked up an old friend on a social networking site. I once used to think that I was in love with her, with every pore on her body and every look on her face. I was dying to find out what she looked like all these years later. However, her recent pictures made him look like someone that even Abhishek Awasthi (Of Rakhi Sawant's X boyfriend fame) would not pick up.

Where was the brilliant smile that had once tasered my soul to the core? Had it transmogrified into two dozen pounds? Sadly, there is now one more name in the list of old loves that I will never admit to in public.

A friend had a similar story to tell. I met him for lunch and he recounted an episode from his teenage years. He had read a poem on an online forum. A poem by a young woman, a woman known only by a first name. No face, no story, just some lines of magic. For a long time, he constructed an identity for the faceless poetess woven around this verse. However, he had managed to shatter this blissful fantasy by digging up a face to go with this memory. After all, fifteen minutes of Google and one minute of Facebook can now do what tattoos and lockets did in Bollywood in the 70's - reunite separated souls, or in this case, demystify a mysterious muse.

'And it was gone - poof - just like that! I should have never looked her up.'
'What she looks like has nothing to do with her writing - don't be so shallow!'
'It's not about how she looks; she is suddenly so?so ordinary.

When we have carried an image in our head for so long, it's so disappointing to see it shattered.' I laughed at him, but at some level, I empathised with my friend - some memories are not to be tampered with. The link between our past and our present is often images of perfection preserved in formaldehyde; and these are tenuous links, and as surprising as it sounds, keeping them intact in this digital age is not all that easy.

I miss my younger days. What was it about us when we were younger that made us overlook minor imperfections? Can we go back to the days when we analyzed less and daydreamed more? When crushes were loves and loves were perfect, when a smile meant more than a dozen roses. Well, we can certainly not be fifteen till we die, but we can certainly hope that some memories stand the test of time (and Google, of course). Till then, enjoy Facebook and thank your stars that you didn't end up with the guy/girl who looks like yesterday's pudding.