Recycled Plastic

When I was in school, I had lots of friends. I never had any fear of starting a new school because usually by recess, I would have already made several lifelong friends. Granted, when you’re six, two months is considered a lifetime, but there you are.

By the end of the first week, I knew everyone on the school bus. By the end of the first term, I had started making friends with the kids in the next grade, and was on nodding terms with the kids in the lower grade. And by the end of the year, I was picking up compost tips with the school gardener, chatting up the lunch ladies in the school canteen (in the faint hope that they’d add more fishballs to my mee-pok), and getting the low down from the security guards on which teacher was sick that day.

This is not to say that I was a particularly popular kid in school, but more to stress that when you’re that age, you have no inhibitions, hang-ups, or social phobias, so everyone you meet is just another person to chat to and a potential lifelong friend.

A few weeks ago, someone sent me an email. Whilst I normally delete emails from people I don’t know, he short preview for this one said, “I sent you…”, which, seeing as it was in the midst of Chinese New Year, made me think I’d been sent a lovely hamper. So, I opened the message only to find it was from a random person I’d met at a party the week before, to say that she’d sent me a LinkedIn request.

I rolled my eyes and hit ‘delete’.

“Why am I even on that stupid thing?” I complained to Amanda at lunch.

She adjusted a fold on her new season Gucci blouse. “Oh, who knows? It’s all just too much. I honestly cannot keep track of anybody or anything these days. The other day, I sat down and worked out that I have accounts with Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, WeChat, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Meets Hangout, Skype and FaceTime!” Amanda paused, her eyes wide with disbelief. “I mean, what is that all about? Why am I contactable through so many channels?”

“I can’t remember the last time I emailed a friend, to be honest,” I told her. “I don’t even know your email address!”

            “And that’s the thing,” Amanda went on, “what’s the point of the actual telephone line? The only people who telephone me are those annoying bank people! Oh! And I have 2,000 followers on Instagram and I really only know, like, ten of them personally! So, who are the rest?”

            “Beyoncé has 112 million followers!” I said.

            “Oh my God,” Amanda sighed. “What does that even mean?”

            Later that night, Saffy said she is now at an age when she has no interest in meeting any more new people. “My dance card is full!” she said, her fabulous bosom swelling like an over-excited bullfrog. “I don’t need any more friends!”

            “Except maybe Woffles Wu!” Amanda suddenly said.

            Saffy paused. “Why Woffles Wu?”

            Amanda looked vague, her eyes shifting sideways. “Well…you know…maybe…”

            Saffy gasped. “You’re thinking of getting something done! What?!”

            Amanda waved her hands. “Nothing! Nothing! I’m not being serious! Just….you know…I do wonder whether I might need a bit of fillers or…stuff!”

            The next day, on our way to the train, Saffy said it amazes her that someone like Amanda would even think she needs anything done to her face. “I mean, her skin is flawless! Although…I have to say that it would be fun to sit down with Woffles for a little consultation. Say…” A contemplative note slipped into her voice. “Aren’t you friends with him?”

            I could see where this was going. “Never met him!” I said firmly.

            “But your column is just on the next page to his!”

            “I don’t know him,” I insisted.

            Saffy’s voice slipped into a lower register – the one she normally uses when she spots an Australian lifeguard at the bar. “But it would be so easy for you to get in touch with him, no? Ask him to drinks or something? And we’d just, you know, tag along?”

            “Saf,” I said patiently. “I barely have time for my own friends. I’m not wasting any time making new friends just so you and Amanda can get discounted Botox treatments!”

            “Actually, I was hoping for free Botox treatments,” Saffy admitted, her voice returning to a normal register. “I’m so poor these days!”

            When she got to the office, Saffy sent Woffles a LinkedIn invitation. If he’s sensible, he’d delete it.