"Dad, do you know this person?"
"Uhh, no. I don't think so."
"So, why are you friends with them? Here, let me see!"
This was the conversation that started my descent into grade A social media embarrassment. In my own defense, I had no idea that teaching my dad how to download and use the Facebook app on his phone would turn out to be a source of embarrassment for me but, oh, would it.
Over the past few weeks, my dad has become much more acquainted with Facebook, and loves to interact with me on it, despite the fact that I see him everyday. Literally. A simple like would suffice, right? Wrong.
After the first one, I kind of thought he'd grow bored of the public embarrassment. Just kidding.
But then he found his emojis... and was even more amused with himself.
Didn't think it could get worse? It definitely could. People started to notice, and I don't just mean my cousin, in the screenshot above. One of my friends actually stopped me after class to ask me about it. "Is that your dad on Facebook?" Why yes, yes it is. Then I had to gently let him know that my comments were public to all 712 people I'm friends with on Facebook. But, even after the comments and the teasing from my friends stopped, something had dawned on me.
I actually liked it when my dad teased me on my very public, very, very public Facebook.
Crazy, right?
When I was 15 years old and angry at the whole entire world, my relationships with both of my parents suffered. But, what hurt the most was the decline in my relationship with my dad. I had always been a daddy's girl. One of my original best friends felt like a stranger to me, and he was right in front of me. I knew that everyone went through puberty and every relationship had its ups and downs, but this felt awful. This felt heart-achingly permanent.
But it wasn't permanent, and that's the thing about being 15 — everything feels like the end of the world.
Now, at 20, I can say that my relationship with my dad has improved vastly. No, it wasn't like it was when I was 13 or 14, but I'm okay with that. Neither one of us are the same person we were 6 or 7 years ago, so why would our relationship remain the same? Through tearful conversations and sometimes too much yelling, we salvaged what was good, got rid of what was bad, and decided that loving each other was more important than any argument we could ever get into about why I left my converses by the front door for the 801st time. That's not to say everything is perfect now, and that I don't still leave my converses by the door (sorry, dad), but things are so much better.
When I was 15 years old and angry at the whole entire world, I never would've thought my dad and I would ever get to a point where he'd be embarrassing me on Facebook, and I'd be red-faced, laughing it off with my friends.
And hey, dad? You got it right. "Puddin" does love her daddy. She always has, and she always will.
