I don’t think I can claim to be anti-social media now that I’m a Redditor. I love my friends, but most of them don’t have hours to talk nonsense at any time of the day, so I get my fix on Reddit. R/AskReddit is a fountain of thought-provoking but mostly pointless questions that get answered by oversharing enthusiasts such as yours truly. Many of these questions inspire a trip down memory lane:

“What’s the weirdest compliment you’ve ever gotten?”

That is a tricky one because I am a woman on the internet, and there are thousands of photos of me online. My Flickr account turns 16 this year, and I’ve been objectified for some oddly specific reasons. Sometimes I’ll go through my Flickr archives and wonder why the permissions for some of the photos have been set to Private until I read the comments. Rather than sending my brain down the darkest lane of my annals, I reflected on real-world instances.

When I worked at Value Village (thrift store) many moons ago, my job consisted of digging through dusty, old stuff. Naturally, there was a lot of sneezing going on. A co-worker I was starting to be friends with told me that I had the cutest sneeze. From that point on, whenever I’d sneeze, she’d giggle and go, “Aww!”

And you know, COVID has taken this away from me because there’s no way I could charm someone with my baby mouse sneezes ever again.

That was also the year I learned that hearing people add sound FX to their sneezes. This friend also confessed that she was afraid of pink dolphins because they “look like people”. She was cute and I miss her.

But I still have cute friends. I call this one Tammy:

Wait, what’s she doing?

Continue reading “Foto Phlurry.” →