David McElroy

A movie made me cry tonight.

It wasn’t the out-and-out sobbing sort. It was just the kind when tears well up in your eyes and your chest shudders a little. Mostly, it was the sort of experience that made my heart feel full, as though some sort of emotion inside was overflowing.

It’s not a great movie, but I enjoyed it. It’s certainly not a serious film. It just pushed my buttons in emotional ways. It made me feel things I’d been trying not to feel. And I realized afterward that I’ve been needing that. It felt like a release of pent-up feelings.

The movie is a 2005 romantic comedy called “Just Like Heaven.” Reese Witherspoon stars as a hyper-successful physician who doesn’t allow herself time for a personal life. After Elizabeth leaves her hospital — following a 26-hour shift — she has a traffic accident that leaves her in a coma. Close to death.

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After 12 or 13 years as a heavy Facebook user, today is my last day posting on my account there. At least for now. I have mixed feelings about this.

Facebook is addictive by design. A lot of very smart people work hard to design the platform in such a way that users spend more and more time there. The more time a user spends on the platform, the more money Facebook makes.

Companies design their products in ways that suit their own needs, so I don’t blame Facebook. The people there aren’t evil. They simply have incentives to get me to do things which I have decided aren’t healthy for me.

Social media has been a good thing for me in some respects. It’s allowed me to connect or reconnect with people who wouldn’t have been in my life otherwise. I’ve made friends because of Facebook. The platform enabled me to reconnect with a woman who I then fell in love with as a result. And it’s maintained ties with people I might have lost touch with otherwise.

But those positives come at too great a cost. I believe it’s dangerous for all of us, but I’m especially convinced that it’s unhealthy for me.

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Actress Dawn Wells’ death today at the age of 82 brought back memories of the old debate from my childhood. Do you prefer Ginger or Mary Ann?

Gilligan’s Island was a ridiculous sitcom that many of us loved anyway. The show was old enough that I grew up seeing it in late-afternoon syndication. My sisters and I often watched it every day after school.

At some point, most people who watched the show took up the question of which of the two young single women in the cast was more desirable. Ginger was the glamorous movie star who had a huge ego. Mary Ann was the small-down girl from the Midwest who was the quintessential “girl next door.”

If you were a man, your choice said something about the sort of woman who appealed to you. If you were a woman, your choice said something about who you really wanted to be.

I felt a little lost in such debates — because I didn’t think either of them represented my ideal woman.

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