> real beaches Several years ago, there I was, on an incredibly beautiful beach in the bay of Thailand. The sun was warm, the water was mild and below the surf

> real beaches Several years ago, there I was, on an incredibly beautiful beach in the bay of Thailand. The sun was warm, the water was mild and below the surface were a great number of vividly-colored creatures. As I sat on the white sand, appreciating every moment I observed two beautiful French-speaking women rent snorkeling equipment and proceed to the water. They walked in, not much more than knee deep, and posed for some cellphone photography in the snorkeling gear. After getting the photos they wanted, they returned the gear and left. I thought about how funny it was to be witnessing social media happening in real life. The veil is so real to those who don’t get to see behind it. When you do, it’s sad, and something to be pitied. The dream those women were selling didn’t even exist for them. They didn’t enjoy the beach. They didn’t swim out to see the incredible ocean creatures. It existed for me. Average me was living their best life that day. I did the things they wanted people to believe they were doing, and they didn’t. It’s really fascinating social behavior. My conclusion is essentially that social media creates a sort of fantasy that perfection is just barely out of reach… and feeding the addiction of continually moving onto the next thing, hoping to find it. It’s probably the same reason people become serial online daters, and the reason for the success of those platforms. It causes people to become inflexible toward enjoyment or appreciation of reality… even in cases where reality is pretty damn near perfect.