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Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year

Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year

▲ Chinese New Year's Eve afternoon, just me and the clerk's café

There are no relatives who must be visited, no scene words that must be said, no step-by-step conventions... Live isolated and full in the city.

This article was first published in Southern People Weekly

Late one night in June 2022, after watching Good Luck, Rio Grande, I downloaded a social app that showed that more than 10 million people were still online.

Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year

▲ "Good luck, Leo Grande" poster

The film was later rated as No.1 comedy in 2022 on Douban, I didn't see anything funny, a female teacher who has only experienced an old-fashioned husband in her life finally broke through herself after becoming a widow in her fifties, and got a wonderful sex experience by spending money to find male college students to get their wish - which sounds a little sad anyway.

So, I thought, while I am not yet old, I might as well come and see the vast world. Six months after registration, I met more than 30 netizens one after another. Friends can't help but express surprise when they hear this number.

"Are they all strangers you've never met?"

"yes."

"Won't it be embarrassing after meeting?"

"No, that's what I do."

To be fair, journalists are really good for social software. Even the most socially feared journalists, based on their professionalism, will not allow a cold scene.

A colleague who would walk 20 flights of stairs to escape the big social crowd because there were so many people gathered at the elevator entrance, told me that she kept the conversation flowing and calm when meeting people who were doctors or financers. After talking, she will also add to the other party very responsibly, "I ask so much does not mean that I really care", such a straightforward professional woman, it is really rare.

Enlarging this mentality seems to explain the dilemma of single men and women, "I want to be in a relationship doesn't mean I really want to be in a relationship." "I yearn for it, but I can't help but weigh it all the time. I refused those invitations to dinner, proposed to drink coffee, and minimized the cost of time, and occasionally I still couldn't help but feel bored, and muttered to myself, with this effort, is it not good to do more interviews.

In the era of rapid passage of love brains, no one will be like Mo Wenwei in "God of Food", laughing with buckteeth, heroically calling herself "Chicken Sister", and taking the cut knife with his bare hands for a man he has only seen on TV, which is an ancient myth.

Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year

▲On the night that Guangzhou was fully unblocked, I was at a Thai barbecue restaurant with my colleagues

In the summer of 2021, I attended a wedding social platform launch in Beijing, and after the meeting, everyone sat down at a long table and chewed the buffet. The presenter directly across from me, who is over forty, can't wait to break the silence, perhaps considering the presence of the brand, or maybe she herself happens to be very keen on the topic of marriage, she winks her big eyes and asks affectionately, "When are you going to have children?" "Relaxed and natural like asking which door of the hotel we were going to go to after dinner.

I looked at each other with two girls, also born in 1991. Whether you want to survive or not is uncertain, this is obviously a trap. "The question is, do you have a strong desire to have children now?" I asked. The public relations makeup on the right is exquisite, a thin and beautiful Jiangsu and Zhejiang woman, she is comfortable with singleness, and signed up for the recording interview of the blind date program, which is also hindered by the repeated urging of friends; The reporter on the left, with her dull yellow hair and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that deepened her student spirit, shook her head to indicate that she did not either, and that her boyfriend, who was a few years younger than her, would seriously advise her to freeze her eggs from time to time.

During the press conference, the male editor of the newspaper sitting next to me talked about his previous unpleasant experience of using the app - after an offline meeting, the other party said that they were not suitable for each other, because they were looking for science and engineering. He was indignant, "I told her my education and career when we chatted before!" If you don't think it's suitable, why would you still like to meet? ”

Is it an excuse or an oversight? No one can tell. If you can't wait for the answer, it becomes self-talk, and when you can't wait, you may not be able to let go. People at both ends of the screen, walking back and forth between the real and the false, repeatedly probing to both sides of the virtual and the real, the degree of sinister is no less than playing Three Kingdoms Killing, sometimes out of nothing, sometimes taking the sheep by the hand, sometimes having fun, but always can't escape to shed blood.

Even if both parties are not fish farming enthusiasts, the uncertainty in the process of love will still follow, which has nothing to do with which social software you use or whether you know through social software, the convenience of the network only accelerates those uncertainties exposed.

I think of a skinny boy who often appears in the craft pub downstairs of his home, and he tilts his face sideways when he speaks, quite dragging. Once we were having a barbecue outside the tavern, and his girlfriend was on the side, playing with her phone in hot pants. When someone talks about his address, he doesn't lift his eyes, "Oh, the apartment is not good there." A few days ago, when he didn't see the girl's figure, he blushed, drank too much and yelled at the speakerphone, begging with the last pride: "Do you love me?" Do you love me or not? ”

The tavern owner supported him from behind, afraid that he would hit the table. A little boy in his twenties accompanies another boy in his twenties through emotional difficulties. The boss is chubby, has a big figure and a small voice, and often shows a shy look on his face. He loves to wear a fisherman's hat in the dimly lit interior, and there are endless floral shirts in the summer. When no one is sitting in different corners to drink, when people come, they will walk over and say hello one by one, and once the background music stops, they will put down their work and meticulously replace the vinyl disc.

Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year

▲ Craft pub owner

At first, when he greeted me, he always liked to ask the boy who went with me for the first time, and then saw that I had changed several male companions, and gradually stopped asking, becoming "Why is it so late today?" ”

Every New Year's holiday, the store will organize activities, and these days of the New Year, he predicts early, "When the time comes, I will play mahjong." "Chinese New Year's Eve evening, I first went to Nansha Lingshan Island with netizens to watch fireworks and eat supper, and it was past 12 o'clock when I went to his store alone. With the Spring Festival Gala on the screen of the projector, I asked if there was any funny program? After ordering the order, he turned his back to the bar to play beer, heard the prelude to the masterpiece "Summer Washstone" suddenly heard in the sketch program, turned around excitedly, and exclaimed to me jokingly: "Cow, the orange sea is on the Spring Festival evening!" ”

There was a table near the door, and I manually rubbed the mini mahjong that I didn't know who brought it, and at the end of each handful, I clinked glasses with the other three people I didn't know. I like this natural and non-sticky communication.

It's a pity that I don't live in Manhattan in Sex and the City, but my love and dependence on the city is not necessarily half a point less than Carrie. Since I don't have to work on weekdays, I just want everything to be as usual when it comes to holidays. In the twenty-eighth year, out of the sun, I temporarily went to the squash hall to play squash for an hour, grateful for these places that cannot be talked to but can bring people a sense of pleasure and security, these restaurants, cafes, bookstores, pubs, art museums, dance studios, drum rooms, livehouses, supporting isolated and full life.

Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year

▲ There was a traffic jam on the way to see the fireworks, and when I reached the destination, I saw a lot of it up close

There were no relatives who had to be visited, no scene words that had to be said, no step-by-step conventions, and on the second day of the Lunar New Year, I still carried my computer to the charging booth in the window of M Stand in Sihai City to write a script. When you are tired of writing, click on the icon, and it only takes a few seconds to give up a new dialog box, sometimes surprised, sometimes in vain, sometimes unwilling to give up a possibility, to borrow the question that the American chef who cooked Chinese food in the way of Western food in China repeatedly asked himself: Is there anyone else in this world, and is there anyone else who thinks the same?

Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year
Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year
Stay in the city, drink coffee, go to pubs, swipe social software| journalists celebrate the New Year

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