Oh Twitter. You have enriched my life in so many ways. You have brought me new friends, helped with those big life changing decisions (gold or silver glitter Miu Miu's) and even recommended a perfect wine tour in the Napa Valla. You make my insomnia almost bearable. You are a constant companion and loyal friend (3G signal /WiFi connection permitting). You are more than just a vehicle for the voices inside my head. You tolerate my documentation of the mundane and fuzzy iPhone pictures of people snoozing on public transport.
You enhance my televisual viewing. Never again will I watch another Masterchef episode without you sat glowing next to me, safe in the knowledge there are others out there perturbed by the
unnatural length of time Greg Wallace can keep a spoon inside his mouth.
But where is the manual when things go wrong? What happens in the heat of the moment when I unfollow someone because they've said something that mildly annoyed me and now I want their timeline back? I can't just follow them again. That's bad twitterquette. Besides, it might draw attention to the fact that I unfollowed them in the first place and have now for some reason decided to follow them again. I would look weak. Indecisive. There might be questions. An awkward virtual exchange where I blame a random twitter bug or accidental finger slip, but behind those smiley emoticons, we will both know the truth.
We started following each other in the early days. When Twitter felt a bit more exclusive and my timeline moved slowly enough to feel personal kinship's forming. With the absence of other distractions, we dabbled in hashtag games and offered each other sympathy when we got colds or missed our connecting train. As time went by, I started following more people and slowly but surely I started not returning your tweets or thanking you every time you retweeted me. A chasm between us opened up that was full of more interesting and glamorous people, with jobs in media and publishing, the rich and famous and, I'm ashamed to say, Ashton Kutcher. I can't remember exactly what you said that made me turn my back and unfollow you, but unfollow you, I did.
Your projected Twitter life was a never-ending stream of home cooked meals with mum, bickering in front of the TV with Dad and evenings down the local pub. It existed as a reminder of how different my life could have been if I stayed at home rather than deciding to carve out an existence in London. Your tweets were largely domestic, banal but always comforting. I knew what you did for a living, how much you hated your ex-boyfriend (who cheated on you with a friend) and how you always flirted with the Post Room guy from your office.
I even knew what music you listened to on your commute to work (R & B, although you saw Take That in concert twice). I knew more about the inner workings of your life than I did about most members of my family. Yours were the first tweets I would read in the morning and the last I would read at night. And yet I unfollowed you. And now I want you back.