COMMENT
I hardly ever post anything on X but I do sometimes leave
a comment on someone else’s post after which I always
feel a strong urge to go back and see if anyone has
commented on it. However, since I’ve convinced myself
that everything we do online is seen, monitored even, I do
this with some trepidation. I don’t want anyone to know
that I keep going back to check whether my comment has
attracted further comment. I worry that I’ll be considered
needy and a bit pathetic.
But I think I also worry because I’m often a bit unsure
about the comment I’ve made. As soon as I make it I’m
unsure, in fact probably even before I make it I am. And
because every comment, however intended, is open to
interpretation there’s always the possibility – just as when I
open my mouth to speak in an actual conversation – of
being misunderstood, which leaves me feeling somewhat
vulnerable.
Anyway, the point is that I don’t want people to know that
I keep going back to check on my comment, especially
when it’s just that – a comment, and not an original post. I
don’t want them to think that a lot depends on their
response to my response, even though it must, even
though it feels like nothing short of my positive state of
mind depends on it, otherwise I wouldn’t keep going back
to check, and for a short while be unable to think about
anything else.
And because I have allowed myself to believe that in the
realm of deep dark tech every single thing we do is
surveilled, I wonder if it’s possible to somehow hide the
fact that I’ve gone back eleven times in the last forty six
minutes?
I’m not sure it is. But what might be even harder to hide is
how I feel when I see that no one has responded to my
comment, even though it is plain for all to see that five
people have viewed it. I can tell this by the number beside
those little vertical lines of variable length that presumably
indicate the potential length of time any one person might
dwell on a comment. So although five people have viewed
my comment, each spending on it their own unique period
of time and consideration, not a single one of them has
been moved to react to it.
So my comment is being ignored – or I am. It’s as if I’ve
just opened my mouth to add something to the
conversation only for a terrible silence to descend. I tell
myself that people are busy, far too busy to dash off a
comment, let alone read one. I mean, would I even
comment on my comment – don’t I also have other, better
things to do, am I not, like them, also practically rushed off
my feet?
The other day a writer posted a poem on X. I liked it a lot
and left a comment saying as much, whereupon he
commented that it had made his day coming from
someone like me, which in turn made my day because I
realised that a writer I admired also admired my writing so
that we had each in our own way – which was in fact the
same way – made the other feel slightly more talented than
we had a few hours previously.
But it had not made my day – in fact it had, if anything,
slightly unmade it, something had unraveled that I was
trying hard to reel back in, something that had revealed
itself by how much I kept wanting to go back and see what
other people thought about him saying that I’d made his
day, that coming from me it had meant something, so I felt
quite excited when I saw that someone had given his
comment the thumbs up.
But then I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t decide if the thumbs up
meant that they too thought I was a good writer, or
whether they thought it was simply a nice thing for the
writer to say. The thumbs up could well have been their
small contribution to help make the space in general a
more encouraging and kinder one.
I spent the rest of the day wondering if I should go back
and let the writer know that his comment on my comment
had also made my day, even though that wasn’t strictly
true. Was this necessary? I decided it wasn’t. I decided it
would be best to just leave it – to let the chirpy little yellow
thumb, whatever it meant, have the last word, even though
it wasn’t in any sense a word, perhaps it was best to leave it
at that.
GRETA STODDART lives in England. Her 4 books (Anvil, Bloodaxe) have won or been shortlisted for major UK poetry prizes including the Geoffrey Faber, Forward and Costa. A long radio poem Who’s there? was BBC Pick of the Week and shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award. She won a Cholmondeley Award in 2023. She is currently working on a collection of short prose.
Read more by Greta Stoddart:
Author’s website
Fiction in Granta
Fiction in The Manchester Review