It's not you, It's me - Breaking up is hard to do

 

Is it really over?

Dear Untappd,

  It's not you, it's me,
  I never thought this day would come. I mean there was a time when I couldn't have imagined not having you front and center in my life while I enjoyed many cold beers and spent time chasing goals and being rewarded for pursuing those dreams. We were a hell of a team.

  But all good things must come to an end.

  It's not that I haven't enjoyed our time together. I really have, you were there for me at the beginning and I wouldn't be here without you. But over time we seem to have grown apart and to be honest it feels like you're barely part of my life any more.

  Where once I couldn't wait to see you and fill you in on my day or night so you could grow and be strong, I now ignore you for weeks on end, almost on purpose and when I do spend time with you it's almost with a heavy sigh and a "let's get this over with" attitude. Neither one of us benefits from that and I can't help but think we could have been so much more.

  I still remember the thrills you would bring me whenever we would go out drinking, adding joy to our growing list of achievements by giving me badges for my various activities and inspiring me to try new and different things to keep that adrenaline going. Where would I be without your encouragement and ever expanding suggestions?

  Why can't we just let things be the same and grow old together, man and app, side by side, phone in hand?

  Truthfully, I know so many other people love you and your addictive rewards based love. they crave to tick and get a badge, add a number and I know that at my most fervent days I was one of them. I couldn't get enough as my number rose and your tendrils of endorphin releasing acknowledgement of my prowess. It felt good to be part of this club and show off all my additions, life became more about the pursuit of quantity over quality and it happened without me even noticing. Chasing flights and samples everywhere we went so we could pop that unique number ever higher and receive accolades we can see in a world that stopped caring a long time ago. Maybe that's why I stayed so long, lingering when I knew I should leave, longing for us to reconnect and fall in sync with each other like it was back in the good old days. I wanted so much to be part of the ticking community when it all began but I have changed and while you have too, some say for the worse, it has become increasingly apparent that we just don't do it for each other anymore.

We all start somewhere...

  I'll be the first one to say that I never thought my life would change so much when we met on that cold February day and I logged my first old Milwaukee. We were young and had no idea the world of beer was on the cusp of changing and nothing would ever be the same again...but it did and so too did we. I ticked with the best of them, downloading festival and taproom lists so I could add them even after I was far too drunk to rate them, it was all about getting the number and the badge...Make me special and make it public baby!  Then came Instagram, Twitter and YouTube and I found a better way to share my love of great beer, albeit without the fancy badges and stats to prove it. The community of people I met started to mean more to me than getting a number and when the day came I realised I was more than a couple of hundred behind in adding to your list, I knew the end was near.

  I'm not here to put down anyone who enjoys using Untappd, sharing beer on social media helps keep me sane so I'm never against you doing you. But for me, now and moving forward, the ticking culture and pursuit of badges has just lost its lustre and shine. Breaking up is hard to do and this goodbye is a long time in coming.
  I will always have the memories of nights spent squinting to focus on trying to type in the 15th sample and cheering badges with my friends as we got hammered with intent to log in our conquests. I will miss some of the times I had at the very beginning of my exposure to Ontario Craft beer and the wider world of what was available but now is the time to say goodbye. I leave the ticking culture to the next generation of beer explorers and can only hope they will to progress to the point where they can let go of their compulsion to tick and acquire badges, freeing themselves and escaping the endless need to acquire more and more.
  But we will always have Old Milwaukee, morning beers and that one glorious time when it was you and me against the world.


Cheers,


Polk

 

When I was angry...

  I found myself staring angrily at the screen last night. Scorn and rage were coming out of my fingertips and as a person I thought was my friend continued to speak ill of me behind my back and online I was ready for a full on war. Words are my weapons and I was ready to unleash the hell of verbal assault on this individual. While I was coming from a place of hurt, especially after all I had thought our friendship was, it was a dark hole and the spiral was very real. My positive outlook often can help me through these times, but last night I couldn't hear that voice, only the pain and anger built up inside me. I could feel the tears and the fear that comes from the natural reaction to being put in a position of defense and knew I could take this to a higher and more dangerous level with very little effort. It surprised me that my anger had so much energy, it took little to set me off and my foot went right to the floor for maximum acceleration. The world is full of knee jerk reactions spilling over into a terrible tailspin and that is where I was headed.
  My default position used to be that kind of angry response to any kind of slight, real or imagined. I could rail for days or even weeks on my high horse and it was (and is) draining. Emotional and physical manifestations of anger take a lot out of a person, emptying you and leaving you seeking even higher levels of that emotion to sustain it. I would spiral into dangerous places in my head and that could lead to crippling anxiety and my old friend depression as I felt trapped by my own feelings and needing to strike out in any way I could. Not physically mind you, I have always been more of a talker, but I would do what I could to make sure my voice was raised and my anger known.
  The last few years have taught me some sense of my own faults and I have worked very hard to address the demons I let take control for far too long. Be it my dependence on drinking to forget or hiding out in my own black space, I strived to be better and make my voice a bright one in the world. While my exploration of craft beer has led me to find new friends and experiences, there always remains a darkness in the back of my mind. Some small and unintended remark still gets my head up and looking for revenge, fight or flight engaged and my fingers poised to attack. The blindness of anger and rage give me a hyper focus that blocks out all the good I have come to know and sends the spiral into a deep and fast descent.
  Such was last night...until a friend reached out and touched me in my heart. A simple message and I could feel the anger dissipating, ebbing away like a bad headache under a cool cloth. They reminded me of the innate goodness that surrounds me just by giving me back my own humanity and helping me realise what I was doing. Petty bullshit and drama is not who I am anymore and I was leaning hard into the wind with both of those. Perhaps I should just be better than that, maybe I should let go of the hate that boils up when I am pushed to my limit and beyond. Words do matter and I was using mine in all the wrong ways for worse reasons. It was almost as if by stopping me with her message, she gave me permission to let this go. I am not sure why but I just felt that way almost immediately. The wonderful thing about our social media lives, much like our real ones, is that we can just cut out the person who tries to make us come down to their level. Block, delete and walk away from the black hole that is trying to suck you in. Being prone to the darkness means I can take that turn on a dime, good friends mean I don't have to.
  Thank you to the person who sent me a lifeline when I was drowning in my own vile anger and goodbye to the person whom I thought was my friend. Valuable lessons from both and while I mourn the loss of one, I am indebted to the other for letting me see myself again. Life is too short to be angry all the time and I will endeavour to remember that better next time someone tries to get me to react that way. Try to be good to each other, it really is such a beautiful way to live.


Polk