This Is Not Me [FINAL VERSION].docx

This Is Not Me by Martin Dabon Hello all. I’m not really sure if what I have to share fits on here, so I understand if this post gets deleted… but I’m desperate for help. Hoping anybody who happens to read this has undergone a similar situation but knows how to solve it. Sorry that this is going to be long, as I felt every detail shared is important, but thank you in advance if you read the whole way. It all started about a month ago, when me and an old friend from high school and college (let’s call him “Isaiah”) decided to grab a few drinks one night after realizing we happened to both be in town that weekend. We hadn’t seen each other in person since the funeral of a mutual friend of ours a few years ago but kept in touch via social media DM’s (largely through sending memes back and forth instead of actually conversing). The two of us were having fun first. Largely just catching up on what we each had going on in our lives while reminiscing over the “highlights” from back in the day. I ribbed him over his recent breakup with his girlfriend of three years, in turn he nagged at me for never leaving our hometown, but we were both able to laugh over our shared past. Each of us planned on driving after our meetup though so we were going easy on the drinks. Also, neither of us smoke. I bring this up just to say that any confusion stemming from substance use couldn’t explain what happened that night. At some point Isaiah headed back to the bar to buy our second round so I scrolled through my phone as I waited for him. Wanting to ask for more details about some of the misadventures he’d been telling me about, I felt like checking his profile to see if he’d posted anything about them. I found a few: scenery pictures he’d taken on his NY trip in October, a group portrait featuring ourselves and the rest of our friend group from when we all last assembled, as well as some blurry videos taken from his phone back when he went around party-hopping this past New Year’s. I’d remembered seeing and liking only a few of them. When he got back I showed him what I was looking at and we talked more about them for a little while. He then pulled up his profile on his phone so that we could each refer back to specific posts on our own. He showed me his memorial post of our late friend Kyle that he made on the anniversary of his passing, as well as a selfie with his new girlfriend, Misty, that he took on Thanksgiving. Neither I had seen before, so he spoke at length about both of those things. It was after a few minutes of a back and forth though when he made an odd expression. He told me how he’d noticed something was off about the profile on my screen. I gave him my phone and watched him as his face flicked between each device. The look Isaiah had on grew more astonished by the second. Eventually he seemed to grow scared. He handed me back my phone, shaking his head.