Are you dead? Are you a fake account? What happened to you? The last things you posted are so sad? Some on coronavirus and worrisome. Some wistful about marriage and emphasizing marriage can be many things and may also be worrisome. Some sexy, sort of, but maybe not really, more like … sad. Did you die of a heart attack or a broken heart? Did you have the virus? Are you taking a break from social media? Who are you, exactly?

What if your life becomes defined by your last social media posts?

I got my first computer in 1983, years before the internet.

Jump to 1994, and at one of my computer classes at George Brown College we were learning about searching the world wide web’s beginnings. How to sift through massive numbers of ‘hits’ – how to find a needle in a haystack. The teacher said on day one to ask a question and we will report about our findings. For my test search, I entered: what are good jobs for older women? and clicked search.

The top results were “Cock Sucker” – I gasped – the teacher ran over at my shriek.

The answer was too true and is still true – there are few jobs for middle aged women. I felt very old sitting in the college class with mostly teenagers. I felt frightened at middle age insecurity, mid-life crisis of changing the world. But thrilled then as now with the computer – and since 1983 and Word Star, as we know, many features have been added to the world of computers = internet = Facebook = TikTok = dark web.

I searched another way in the computer in that 1990s class for my career change and I learned how to ask questions. Internet entrepreneur sounds good. But I also never forgot what it meant to be despondent, what it meant to be sick and alone.

The case of the missing man who seemed to be alone, despondent. A social media mystery.

If it is on the internet, I can and will find it, but this man is an anomaly. It might be that I need to search for him in Italian only. Something feels unreal about the page. He has 5,005 followers but I can’t see any friends and one of his last posts on earth was a song that is devastatingly sad. I did not know the song, but I did know sadness when I heard it. The few words of the song — irrelevant to the very sexy guy twisting his bum around in time to the haunting melody — spoke loneliness to me. Link below with last posts.

I know despondent, and I got a little chill wondering what happened to this stranger on social media. Almost 100 people online asking where he is and comments after posts and no answers.

So I went to search for him and what was this haunting song? Then I see there is a TikTok answer and there is a viral internet happening.

https://www.tiktok.com/tag/ineedsomebodydancechallenge?lang=en

I guess if he is a fake account, he is reborn in some other page already. If he is dead, was this video about the sexy guy and the man did not know his days were numbered? Or were these sad words asking for help? Asking for help because he was sick, or asking for help because he was despondent?

“I need somebody to heal, somebody to know, somebody to have, somebody to hold”

And then I found the song and it certainly is sad. It speaks to music that can make you recall every heartbreak you ever had. It grips the throat and reminds of that old lump of hurt that used to be hard to swallow. The sad and amazing song by the artist, the music video, by Lewis Capaldi.

Lewis Capaldi – Someone You Loved (Official Video)

Why did the stranger share his sadness? Did he know he was dying? The dozens and dozens of posts from people after his last post speak of people feeling sadness because they do not know where he is.

One said they were sad they, “did not make it in time to kiss his eyelids.”

His last posts on earth…

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10227239086898462&set=a.2243849251215

“…

eontrdSospi606ulJ06 gl750a824i2uhf1im842e4c2t669cf6f6712m4n1  · 

IN CAMMINO SULLE STRADE AL TEMPO DEI ROMANI.
LE PIETRE MILIARI

Le strade erano dotate di pietre miliari, che indicavano la distanza in miglia dal MILIARIO AUREUM, “chilometro zero” posto nel Foro romano, ai piedi del Campidoglio, che riportava incise le distanze dai più importanti centri dell’impero e da dove venivano conteggiate le miglia di tutte le strade.

Già prima del 250 a.C. per la via Appia, e dopo il 124 a.C. per la maggior parte delle altre, le distanze tra una città e l’altra erano contate in miglia, che erano numerate con le pietre miliari (la moderna parola “miglio” deriva infatti dal latino milia passum, cioè “mille passi”, che corrispondono a circa 1480 metri).

La pietra miliare, MILIARUM, è una colonna circolare posta su una base rettangolare, infissa nel terreno per oltre 60 cm, alta 1,50 m, con 50 cm di diametro e del peso di oltre 2 tonnellate.

Alla base recava scritto il numero di miglio della strada su cui si trovava. All’altezza dello sguardo del viaggiatore si trovava inoltre un pannello con indicata la distanza dal Foro di Roma e altre informazioni sugli ufficiali che avevano costruito o riparato la strada.

Le pietre miliari permettevano di conoscere esattamente i luoghi e le loro distanze. Non ci volle molto perché i fatti più importanti venissero registrati riferendosi al miglio in cui accadevano…”

The last words

“…”Ubi tu Gaius, ibi ego Gaia” (wherever you will be, there I will be).

They used this formula to marry in Ancient Rome. The boyfriend gave the bride-to-be a ring, which the woman put on her left hand. According to Aulo Gellio, in the anularius there is a thin nerve that starts from this finger and reaches the heart. For this reason the honour of wearing the engagement ring and the wedding ring should be cancelled, because of the close link that connects it to the principal organ.

Marriage has been one of the main pillars on which civil society was founded, along with justice and religion, as Foscolo wrote in the “Sepolcries”: “From weddings and courts and have given humans to be pitiful of themselves if and of others… “

But true love can have a thousand forms but one dignity, and only time is the witness of the strength that is unleashed between two souls, and it cannot be sanctified by formulas and traditions.

The title I would like to give to the photo is: “a life together; drop off”…”

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10227235440527305&set=a.2243849251215

Then his post of the haunting song.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/772084837502203?s=single_unit

June 14th he posted about a sad suicide. June 22nd is his last post.

Then he is gone. By July, dozens of posts begin over the next months with people asking, “where are you?” Some asking where are you, what happened?

Another said, “…Ho provato ad arrivare in tempo per darti un bacio ma, per pochi minuti, non ce l’ho fatta, eri andato via, non so dove ma spero ti arrivi comunque il mio amore. Tieni stretto il pezzo del mio cuore che è venuto via con te AMICO mio… (translation) …I tried to arrive in time to kiss you but, for a few minutes, I couldn’t, you were gone, I don’t know where but I hope you get my love anyway. Hold tight to the piece of my heart that went away with you my FRIEND…”

One man finally answered in a comment, he died… He needs a findagrave memorial.

It is still strange what can come up in a search, on the internet, on a computer.

I had never seen TikTok before. I thought back to 1994 and my question in my internet search class about jobs for women. But on the dance challenge page, there were dozens of world wide entries of young and old, cute or sexy, weird and par, a world wide cacophony of humans.

I thought of the man, his last posts, his shares to his 5,005 followers about life and loneliness.

Is any of it real?