Member-only story
Green Dot Syndrome
Act I: Acceptance
You’re in love. People like to avoid that word, but that’s what’s happened. You don’t know if you love that person, as in the transitive verb to love, with an individual being the direct object, but you are definitely in love, which is stative. Maybe you’ve just been broken up with or done the heartbreaking yourself. On the other hand you might be feeling something new, or a relationship has blossomed. Maybe it’s something much more difficult to simply prescribe terms to.
Nonetheless, whether pursuing or trying to flee, you are in love and it’s sort of terrible. Take it from me. I’m in love and it’s been a nightmare.
For those in a budding relationship, being in love is masochistically scary. For those at the end of a road, it’s painful. You are chained to your love no matter how hard you want to shove it aside, like an addict trying desperately to quit. Then, as if you need any more stress, the emotional maelstrom inside you manifests as an external daemon: a little green dot.
Green Dot Syndrome is the painful longing of the Internet Age. It’s sitting at your desk at work or in bed at night, scrolling through your chat bar on Facebook or G-Chat and seeing your lover online, then contemplating that fact.
