Help! I Fall in (Platonic) Love With Everyone on FB Marketplace

Welcome back to Saturday Night Social.

We’re knee-deep in the era of transience, and I’m overwhelmed with the tragic reality that we can’t just up and be friends with every person we share more than a good moment with. (And no—adding each other on Instagram just to ghost-view each others’ stories until the end of time does not count.) One of the biggest forms of this grief comes to me nearly every time I buy something off Facebook Marketplace.

Facebook Marketplace is special not just because it’s an anarchic space in the Internet—but because it’s one that ultimately yields face-to-face interactions. Like, imagine just every time you engaged in a Subreddit, you had to meet with other people from said Subreddit. The serendipity would be fantastic! 

Now, I’ve spoken to other people about this phenomenon—many of whom relate. And while I’d say that this pattern speaks to a deep primal instinct to indulge in our true roots as merchants and barterers—or refuse casual capitalism and mass-consumerism—I just can’t help feeling a desperate connection with nearly everyone I meet to buy, sell, or bargain stuff from.

I once bought a used air-fryer (I know, I know) from someone who lived 40 minutes away, and as I tested the different plugs, buttons, and functions, we had a warm exchange about the unfair reality of having to cede your technologies—no matter how nostalgic—to whatever’s most advanced. Specifically, he was lamenting that while he was moving into a house larger than his last, he was moving in with more friends, as well—one of whom had a more upgraded version of his air-fryer. “I’m sad to see this go,” he said. 

In another purchase, I arrived at a very-classy-looking house to buy a lamp from an older lady who had just minutes earlier downloaded a new surround sound system into her house, and was bursting to try it. “Would you mind?” she asked. “Of course not!” I replied. We sat, listening to a vinyl she was all-too-proud of having. Ugh, if only I could have stayed for lunch. 

And—perhaps the one I think about most—I was buying a TV from a girl about my age after having newly moved to my first apartment, when we started chatting about being transplants in a new city—and the kind of loneliness that feels inherent to being so far from home. Alas, we never christened our friendship with adding each other on social media or exchanging numbers—but I’d like to think that’s a good thing.

In fact, it may be altogether better to never place the pressure of actual friendship on those you meet from Facebook Marketplace, because as horrible as it feels to never actually befriend anyone from there, it may feel worse to try and capitalize on one good interaction with a forced connection. So… for now, let me just crush in happy peace.