Of FOLO and FOMO

The two acronyms that govern almost every modern relationship. Fear of Losing out and Fear of missing out. I was introduced to these as the millennial lingo by our CHRO just to point out how she is tune with times and how much we weren’t. Showing off apart, it made me realize how true these words, depict the present day scenario of relationships. When communication tools were luxury, letters did the deed, where people have to actually take effort in pouring their heart out, but well within the confines of the stickable area. Those confident enough of their content, used post cards. But neither were easy on the hand and depended a lot on various parameters, handwriting being the least of them. With landline phones, it got extended a bit and with mobile phones, the virtual presence got as assured as the signal strength offered by the provider. With more and more tools and means that encouraged closer and continuous communicable means, the more are the fear of missing out. People have become more insecure in their relationships and even the slightest delay of a response is construed as ignoring. There are scrutinizing options to figure out the actual intent behind the delay. A blue tick may mean something while a different colored tick mean totally different. The communication apps dons the role of the proverbial shopkeeper who sells both shields and swords. The shields are supposedly unbreakable by any sword, while the sword section carry ads that they can break any shield. You can have a million followers and friends on the app and still don’t have anyone to share a coffee or tea with. 

I’ve been on both sides of this situation where I’ve felt left out and have moved on as well. Especially during peak covid, when people were connecting over video calls, lot many got/felt missed out. Relations got rewired when virtual and real worlds entwined. Frequencies of connects got recalibrated. Definitions/labels of interpersonal connects underwent overlapping meanings and boundaries needed to be reframed. There is a saying in tamil that relationships that were never visited will soon die its natural death. The converse of that happened during pandemic where in people who used to connect in real time met virtually. With looming fear of the next wave coming up, this is going to be one topic that will be debated much in future, where privacy and public profile undergo a transformation. It reminds of an episode from Seinfeld, where George Costanza has a problem of his fiancée mingling with his close friends. He feels “Independent George” or the free George will “die” if his personal world with his fiancé collides with the world of his friends. He tries all cranky things to mess up her relation with his friends, eventually triggering the very situation he wanted to avoid.  The same is applicable to those people who are in the cusp of their twenties, awaiting take off into the real world, only to be still taxiing inside their homes, with little or no option for tasting what they have been rebelling to since their teen age. This bunch of pandemic hardened younger generation is going to be a lot different than any that came in from the previous decades like mine and is going to reset the future of how we look at things. Generation gap just got shrunk from couple of decades to single digit years. It is all going to be new and not all new things need be bad I guess, hopefully!!