Róisín Ingle on . . . the unfiltered life

‘Instagram lies.”

That's what my friend said when I told her how much I enjoyed browsing all the beautiful photos a mutual acquaintance prolifically posts of her happy and photogenic family. And by enjoy, I mean gazing at in quiet jealousy, wondering why we've never gone hiking up picturesque mountains with our children or signed them up for a yoga class.

There are pictures of this family crowding onto hammocks. Messing about on rivers. Carefully composed snaps of a boy and a girl who look just like the boy and girl out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang frolicking through a meadow in designer clothes while their parents stand arm-in-arm, the sun setting in the distance, a half-drunk bottle of craft beer on a nearby table beside a copy of what looks like Vogue.

And beside these snapshots, this mutual acquaintance likes to type: #nofilter. It’s a small hashtag that says so much. It says: “I can take brilliant photos without the aid of filters.” It says: “This is my life unfiltered. Jealous? You so very well should be.” It also says: “When I put my life out there, I don’t need to soften the lense or deepen the hue of the colours – it’s all perfect just as it is, thanks.” #nofilter #grrrrr

“Instagram lies,” says my friend as we stroll through the late September sunshine. I think when I get married again I’ll get married in September. It is always lovely and every year I forget it’s going to be lovely, so the entire month arrives like a balmy surprise before blustery October.

“It lies through its teeth,” she continues. “The less telegenic truth is she’s just lost her job and thinks her husband is having an affair. She’s in bits.”

You’d never know this from her Instagram feed. And I don’t blame her for publishing the best version of her life on social media. Because while it’s often where we first get wind of all the world’s real news and happenings, it’s not really the place for real lives, the unexpurgated version anyway. It’s a place for putting your best frame forward.

And for all the #nofilter protestations, most of the lives displayed on Instagram and Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook are highly curated and edited and well and truly filtered.

We all do it. Maybe not on social media, but elsewhere. It’s in those round-robin emails where you learn all about a family’s brilliant achievements but not so much about the teenage arrest for drunken disorderly behaviour. We edit ourselves relentlessly because if we told the truth we’d have to reveal the extent of our messy lives. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?

Although I’m often accused of hanging out my dirty linen in this forum, I’m also not averse to a bit of careful filtering. For example, I could tell you about the dress hanging on the back of the chair in my kitchen. The one that was reduced from €350 to €120 in a sale in a shop I never usually go to which I found myself in one day by chance. The elegant, comfortable, grown-up dress that would see me through every occasion. The only dress I feel good in at the moment. The Dress.

The one I wore to Hilary and Peter’s beautiful wedding last month and didn’t feel like I usually feel at weddings – out of place. The one that hangs prominently in my wardrobe so that even on those days when I’m feeling like I want to filter everything out of my life, a simple swish of my hand on the delicate skirt makes everything momentarily better.

I could tell you that I think it’s hilarious that my boyfriend put this dream of a dress into the washing machine. That I soon saw the funny side when I came home to discover it now looked as though as it had gone seven rounds with a curling tongs. I could tell you that I agreed with him wholeheartedly when he declared there was nothing wrong with it.

I could tell you I didn’t throw it in the bin with the used teabags and leftover pasta and go up to my bedroom to wail and mourn for a dress I’ll never know the like of again.

I could make a joke that the Chief Laundry Technician needs a severe dressing down and explain that I’m totally okay with this turn of events. After all, it’s only a dress. Just a piece of material. And it was an accident and worse things happen at sea.

But I’m not okay. I’m raging and full of bitter, resentful, unattractive thoughts. #nofilter

roisin@irishtimes.com