Vanish

How can you believe someone who doesn’t exist online or in any virtual capacity? It is fishy as well as extremely mysterious. What kind of a person would have no virtual presence at all? I’ve got my theories about this theory. I mean there are several types of people who have no virtual presence. If I someday decided to go AWOL the first thing I’d do is vanish my digital signature. Google may be the God of search, but someone is determined not to be found will not be found. Ever. It is very possible to create a virtual black hole around your presence. To begin with get rid of that Facebook page. Get rid of email, and any other sites you may ever have signed up on. And viola, you do not exist.

However the bigger question here is not how to vanish, but why? What life event would be so scary, so traumatic that you'd wanna vanish? Alright there are quite a few reasons for someone to not have a virtual existence. For instance, a friend of mine was telling me sometime time back about such a thing. Apparently someone she knew met a guy on the party circuit. Said guy and girl became friends and eventually the girl decided, let me check this guy out. I mean why not, right? He didn't have a Facebook page, didn't have a Twitter page, and Google actually showed no results upon searching his name. Eventually they found out he was some kinda psycho, with a rap sheet a mile long and history of rape. Wow, huh?

It made me wonder, how much we have come to depend on the digital world. Even a decade back, the internet did not exist. Or at least a dependence on it wasn't there. Today, if you don't exist on the internet, you're probably a serial killer. Or just vary of the net, like my father, though he has email and a Facebook page and Linkedin! Law Enforcement has Cyber Crime Units for crying out aloud! Okay, i digress with this..

Coming back to the reasons for vanishing online. I believe, if I ever wanted complete peace and isolation, I would vanish my digital life. Go offline everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot, Scribed, BM, Whatsapp, and the whole lot of them. I realize life would probably be a lot simpler and a lot easier if these things did not exist. Of course, today, life would be a lot lonelier if some form of presence wasn't maintained on these platforms. But, I also know, that would take a huge amount emotional distress to take this step. That or maybe I'll just stop caring about the world in general.

A thought comes to me as I write this. I met someone who did not exist online. He isn't a serial killer, just a normal guy who gave the wrong name. But, and that is a huge but (pun unintended), there was some sort of an attraction about someone who had no virtual presence. A mysteriousness that is almost magnetic in nature. It was this that got me thinking. Without doubt, I now know, that the allure of someone who is non-existent is far larger than the hottest, most charming and amazing guy you will ever meet. Someone who does not exist will ALWAYS be on your thoughts, it's like fuel for the fire that is your imagination. You will think and analyze and discuss it to death with your friends, they will warn you to stay away, and it will just get harder and harder to stay away. I am not the sort of person who can ever ignore a challenge, or a mystery. And that pretty much explains this monologue, and postmorten of events, feeling, reasons...