why my sister stopped sharing her location with me
what happens when you helicopter parent your sims
(welcome to… i dont have the name for it yet. but every friday i’m going to share a story about how the internet affects our relationships, using stories from my own life)
this is the story about how i got my location privileges revoked.
i had just arrived at my sister’s apartment on the upper west side with our dog. at the time i lived in bushwick and we acted as divorced parents, shuttling our dog child between our apartments, one hour each way. i got him weekdays because i worked from home, karina got him on weekends. it was 9:30, a cold night, i had a long week, i decided to stay at karina’s. she said that’s fine but she’s leaving for a date in an hour.
i felt a familiar pit in my stomach. you’re leaving for a date at 10:30pm?! i want more information, but i can’t seem parental.
i put on a cool older sister act. “so who is he? what are you guys doing?” she laughs. “i’m not telling you.” she never shares info about her dates with family. and vice versa. to her, it feels too serious.
amazing. tonight’s forecast is looking like me vs. my anxiety.
i invite over my bf, arthur to keep me company and distract me. he comes over, cracks some jokes with karina. we put on a movie, karina announces she’s leaving. it’s 10:40pm.
pay attention to the time because it’s important.
i joke to arthur about how karina is going on such a laaate date, but it’s one of those “jokes” you tell that is or isn’t a joke, depending on a person’s reaction. arthur says that’s normal for new york city. i get a little annoyed at him for making me feel old.
to ease my anxiety, i sneak a peek at “find my friends” - i see her contact photo move swiftly down the two dimensional streets towards the subway. makes sense. i close the app. my anxiety subsides.
i open the app at 11pm, just to make sure. she’s at penn station. the upper west side is about ten minutes from penn station. and she’s going to the lower east, which means she probably got down at penn to transfer to a west to east train. makes sense. i close the app. arthur and i start a movie.
i couldn’t tell you what the movie was or what was happening. i laugh to make it look like i’m paying attention. i’m not nervous, i tell myself. i’ll prove how not nervous i am, just one more look at the app. 11:25pm. still at penn station. weird, i thought. maybe the trains are running late.
11:30pm, still at penn station. 11:32pm still at penn station. ok i won’t check again for another ten minutes. 11:42, still at penn station. it’s been 40 minutes. i start to panic. arthur pauses the movie.
“she probably doesn’t have service,” he said calmly. you don’t understand!! god why is he being such a man! she could be dead, she may not have service, she could have been pushed onto the tracks, maybe her phone’s dead- no she always charges it it’s never dead. but she is?!
i try to call her, straight to voicemail. i go to whatsapp, because it gives you one check mark if your message was sent, but two if it was delivered. i try to think of a dumb excuse to text her. i text, “do you have salt?”
one check mark. 11:50pm.
shit. i try instagram DM’s to see if she’s active now. “last active 2 hours ago.”
“who is she with?! she must have told you?!” i ask arthur. he says he doesn’t know the name, but she showed him a picture of the man, and said he’s from ohio. and that karina met him last weekend at puja’s party.
my heart calms for a bit. puja is MY friend, i was at this party. i don’t remember my sister talking to anyone.
puja wouldn’t associate with creeps. but then again victims have been attacked by someone they know statistically- i shut my brain down before it gets there.
It’s 12am. i debate whether to call puja. my mom taught me to never call people after 10, but that was a rule from the 90s. karina was still at penn station.
i call puja, she picks up. “my sister is out with a man she met at your party. i don’t know his name. he’s from ohio. she’s not responding. i want to see if she’s with him.” i feel insane. to my surprise, puja completely understands. “i’m an older sister too.”
“do you know his name?” puja asks. “no but my bf knows what he looks like. and that he’s from ohio. ” puja rattles off a few names, none of them sound familiar. how are so many people from ohio.
she suddenly exclaims! “the photobooth! i made a reel of pictures taken at the photobooth! maybe he’s in it! i’ll send it to you.”
arthur says he would be able to recognize his face. we get the reel. IT IS ON.
immediately this was proving to be difficult. this reel was synced to kid cudi’s day n nite REMIX. We were going through 30 faces set to 200bpm. on top of that, it was a dad-themed party and people were wearing fake mustaches. arthur can’t find him.
we must have watched it ten more times. i had it up on my phone, arthur played it on his. we both were taking screenshots to the beat. my index finger and thumb had indents from the buttons. i swore i’d never listen to day n nite in that moment.
^the famous reel
it is now 12:46am. karina is still at penn station.
we go through the screenshots, they’re all blurry. there are many repeats.
wait, why don’t we screen record the video and watch it slowly?!
45 minutes wasted. i suddenly feel sad for boomers, how they went their whole lives without technology and now we laugh at them for not knowing the obvious shortcuts.
i screen record the video. arthur stops at one picture. “I think that’s him?”
I look at his photo. tall, grey hat, pastel polo, white shorts. distinctly midwestern.
i send puja the photo. “oh yeah, that’s tanner.” he was one of the names she mentioned earlier. we got him. to my surprise she starts to laugh.
“tanner is harmless! he is the sweetest guy! but i get it. i’ll text his best friend.”
his best friend turns out to be a woman (thank god) currently in california (where it’s just after 9pm, also thank god). my anxiety simmers down, but i have to be sure.
it is now 1:15am. karina is at penn station. i search “woman pushed on tracks penn station” on google, my heart pounding. something definitely would have come out by now. the last article was from two years ago. i call karina again, straight to voicemail.
no choice but to wait for puja.
1:35am, puja calls back.
“i got her! She just got a hold of tanner. he’s with your sister at fool’s gold.”
YESSSS!!!
i quickly google fools gold. it’s a basement club immediately next to the 2nd avenue subway station… a station… underground… basement is underground… her location never updated because she went from one basement to another oh my god.
arthur was right, she didn’t have service. nothing more humiliating than calling out a man for being a man, and it turns out he was right. lucky for him this happens a lot.
i feel relief and embarrassment flooding through my body. i thank puja, she says she totally has been there with her own sister. my relief was immediately cut short with my sister’s name flashing on my phone screen.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY IS THE GUY I’M WITH TELLING ME THAT MY SISTER IS CALLING FOR ME!!
i cannot believe this. i spent the last three hours searching for her, losing my mind, watching a reel on repeat, flooding my phone memory with screenshots and deleting my own pictures to make room for them!!
“your location wasn’t updating i was worried!!”
“I DON’T HAVE SERVICE IN THIS BAR!!”
i ask her what would she do if MY location wasn’t updating. she was already in tears, saying he knows more about her than she wanted to share.
“i’m grown up now!! why can’t you just trust me!”
she tells me i ruined her night and she’s coming home. i fight back angry tears as arthur hugs me and says, it’s okay. we found her. i feel guilt not relief.
i decide i’ll go to sleep before she comes home to avoid confrontation.
buuut not before making sure she’s actually coming home.
i scroll through find my friends. all the way at the bottom are people who can see my location, but i can’t see theirs.
karina’s contact is there. mockingly.
maybe it’s for the best, i tell myself. i won’t do it again… but i probably will.
there’s got to be a happy medium between being overwhelmed with anxiety when nothing is happening, or being underwhelmed when something is actually happening.
someone should invent that.
I loved that you included the reel! Absolutely hilarious
My best friend won’t share her location with me and I think about it constantly and honestly, that’s why she won’t share it with me