The Luddite’s Support Group

The Luddite’s Support Group

I show up early because if you’re just on time all the good cookies are gone, and I’ll be damned if I go into this fueled by a raisin-oatmeal abomination. We mill about, chatting through crumbs, the tension slowly building. There’s a fresh face in the crowd of sinners today, and I scan it immediately, looking for signs of the anxiety that we all bring with us when we enter here. When I first arrived, mine felt heavy as a set of irons, tied to my ankles and dragging me to new depths.

But this newcomer’s face is peaceful. Placid and round as a fairytale milkmaid’s. The woman it belongs to even has her straw blonde hair in a single braid down her back, expertly plaited, as if she’s truly trying to emulate just that image. And her face is beatific. Calm. No sign of nerves. No glimmer of fear. No despair.

“What the fuck is wrong with the new girl?” I mutter to Ayesha, who has likewise been scrutinizing the new face over the edge of her flimsy paper cup of muddy coffee.

“What do you mean?” Her eyebrows shoot up, the sparkle piercing above her left eye dancing slightly. Every support group needs a little bit of disco.

“She seems so chill.”

This fact enrages me. We’re all here because we messed up, in one way or another. My own guilt is so great, it gnaws at me at night, an animal in my belly that I can feel skittering around, as if trying to escape, every time I close my eyes.

“Maybe she’s here for something small,” Ayesha shrugs. “It’s not like everybody in here did something totally egregious—” She stops herself short, clocking the way her words make me wince. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” I cut her off quickly. “I know I’m worse than a lot of the other suckers here.” I force a grin before shoving the rest of my chocolate chip cookie in my mouth, silencing myself with sugar. But my throat’s gone dry, and the sweetness tastes like sawdust.

“If you all will take your seats, we’ll get started!” Marissa, who leads the group, claps her hands loudly from the center of the room, a schoolteacher bringing her classroom of children to order. As usual, she looks impeccably put together—not a single hair in her sleek dark bob out of place.

We each take one of the metal folding chairs propped against the room’s back wall and scrape them to the center of the room with an awful screeeeech of metal across the uncovered concrete floor. I scrape mine extra hard. The newcomer—the milkmaid, I’ll call her—doesn’t flinch. In fact, rather than hesitating, as most of us did on our first day, she settles into her seat first and then proceeds to look peacefully around the circle at the other faces, as if she is surveying her coop of chickens coming to roost.

“Thank you everyone for coming tonight,” Marissa’s sharp voice settles us. “I’m Marissa, and I’ll be leading tonight’s luddite support group. I see we have a newcomer, so I’d like us all to introduce ourselves. I’ll start.”

The usual routine. The animal scurrying in my stomach picks up the pace, as I realize I’ll have to admit my sin yet again. It never gets easier.

“Now, as you all know, each of us is here because of some incident with technology. An incident that may have caused us or those around us pain and that may have left us reluctant to engage with the technological world moving forward.”

“Reluctant” is putting it lightly, but I nod nonetheless. I still don’t have a smartphone. Not after what happened.

Marissa looks around, making sure she has everyone’s attention, before continuing: “In my case, as most of you already know, I used Facebook to run a multi-level marketing scheme. It eventually blew up in my face, and I lost a lot—my husband and I had to foreclose on our home, and then he left me and…” She looks down, batting her eyelashes as if she might cry, but I know she’s not going to. She’s been through this spiel too many times. And she’s tough. Marissa’s stunt landed her in jail. If she can make it through that, this group isn’t going to break her.

Sure enough, as soon as she looks up, her eyes are bright and clear. Not even a hint of tear. “I haven’t had a social media account since,” she concludes with a woe-is-me tone. “I’m Marissa. And I’m a technophobe.”

“Hi, Marissa!” The room greets her en masse.

We continue around the circle, each person unveiling their tech-related sins. From scams to straight-out stupidity, the selection of grievances is vast. But we all share one thing: the tech we trusted in burned us.

And now it’s my turn. The animal in my belly is at a frenzy, scrambling and clawing as I open my mouth to speak. “My name is Matthew. And uh… Well, I’m here because of a Zoom meeting.”

The milkmaid is eyeing me with curiosity, her head cocked to the side quizzically. I hold her gaze, determined, as the words spill out of me: “I was doing really well in my career, and then the pandemic hit, and everything was on Zoom. And I was feeling lonely and… I don’t know. We had this meeting, and I was dialing in from my smartphone instead of my laptop, and didn’t think my camera was on, so I was… I was…” I stumble.

Say it, Matthew. I focus on a small freckle on the milkmaid’s cheek: “I was masturbating, and it turned out the camera on my phone was on and everyone saw. I didn’t realize until my CFO texted me, and then it was too late. I lost my career. My family. My prospects.” And I made goddamn headlines. “I’m Matthew, and I’m a technophobe.”

My dull voice is met by a shiny “Hi, Matthew!” from the group.

I’ve been through this more than once, and it never gets easier. Each time a new face appears, I have to relive what I did. Shame is already a terrible feeling. But years of shame packed into sixty seconds is a sucker punch that leaves me gasping for air.

Next to me, Ayesha shifts slightly, resting her hand ever so briefly on my forearm. A small show of support. She knows how much I hate this. I give her a grim nod of thanks before turning my attention to the milkmaid. At least now I get to find out what SHE did…

We all shift in our chairs, a light scraping of metal on the bare floor giving away our eagerness. Everyone wants to know. We’re hurt dogs, eager to add to the pack of shame, bloodthirsty for someone else’s sins to eclipse our own.

But the milkmaid looks anything but shameful. She smooths the folds of her ankle-length skirt, a sad beige color in a delicate floral pattern that makes me think of Little House on the Prairie. The room holds its collective breath in anticipation.

“My name is Rebecca. And to be honest, I’m not sure why I’m here.”

I feel my jaw clench, teeth grinding together.

“I just don’t think I’m doing anything wrong,” she continues brightly, blue eyes clear as she looks around the room. “But a friend of mine suggested I come here as… I don’t know. I don’t know why.”

I slip my hands under my butt to keep my fists from clenching. This. This is the worst kind of person. The ones who skip through the world gaily, causing destruction like a wrecking ball, without a goddamn clue.

“Maybe you can tell us why your friend recommended you attend,” Marissa suggests calmly, seemingly unrattled—but I can see a spark of something in her eye. Is it annoyance—or am I projecting?

“Well, I have this social media account that my friend thinks is problematic.”

Here we go… Ayesha and I exchange glances, telegraphing between us as our brains race through the options. What could it be. My brain buzzes through possibilities: Only Fans? Some alt-health guidance that got someone killed? We already have one of those in the group. Some pop psychology faux therapy bullshit that destroyed someone’s life? We have one of those in the group too… Some toxic mommy-and-me account? I glance to Ayesha—she’d have a co-sinner then. But no:

“I run a trad wife account.”

Ayesha inhales sharply and, for a moment, even Marissa looks rattled. But this is something new to me, so my shock doesn’t match the room’s. I’ve been off all social media—all tech, period—ever since my own incident.

“What the fuck is a trad wife account?” I whisper to Ayesha urgently. How am I supposed to judge the milkmaid if I don’t understand her crime?! But Ayesha just shakes her head lightly. No sidebars in group. Still, I notice that her eyes have gone steely. Whatever a trad wife is, it must be bad.

“But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it!” The milkmaid shrugs, unflustered by the room’s palpable reaction, silent as it is.

“Maybe you can tell us more about your account.” Marissa leans forward, eyes gleaming. I settle into my seat, a slow satisfaction starting to brew. I know that gleam. I’ve seen Marissa do this before: Lure the unsuspecting newbie into complacency, pick at them for details innocently, and then lay them bare, nailing them to the cross for the rest of us to stare at.

“I just post aesthetic videos of things like me baking and cleaning and preparing dinner for my husband. I advocate for a traditional marriage, where men’s and women’s roles are clearly defined. He is the breadwinner and I am the bread baker!” The milkmaid’s wordplay concludes with a tinkling laugh, amused at her own cleverness. It’s not the first time that she’s dropped this line. But it may be the first time that nobody’s laughed at it—because as she’s met with stoney silence, I see her eyes flicker with confusion. Finally: weakness.

“I see.” Marissa leans forward, slim fingers steepled under her chin. Her eyes are wide, all innocence, and the corners of her mouth turn up, but there’s a tightness to her face that makes it mask-like. “And do you make money with the videos you post?”

“I do.” The milkmaid nods proudly.

“So, your husband is in fact not the only ‘breadwinner’ in the family.” The ends of Marissa’s fingers are turning white, she’s pressing their tips together so hard.

The milkmaid falters, but only for a second: “I guess, but the lifestyle I portray—”

“The lifestyle you portray is a sham.” The knife in Marissa’s voice is unsheathed. “You are shilling content just like any other influencer out there. You are earning money from it. All the while, you are telling other women that they should not make their own money and rely on a man to provide for them, essentially making them reliant on their spouse in a way you will never be on yours. May I ask if you have children?”

“Uh… Yes. Five.” The milkmaid is thrown by the abrupt question, as am I.

“Ah.” Marissa leans back, a smile of satisfaction crossing her face as she goes in for the kill. “And do you have a nanny?”

Silence. That’s a yes.

“So, my guess is that you post videos of you with your adorable, perfect kids,” Marissa continues calmly. “But you never show your followers the nanny. You yourself are surely always impeccable in these videos, clean and coifed and styled and made up. You are setting an impossibly unrealistic standard for the average woman without your means to achieve, and you are lying about it. You think your content is cute and innocent and not hurting anybody, but it’s hurting an entire generation of women who are aspiring to be like you without knowing the real you. At the best, you are creating a false standard that causes women to feel bad about themselves. At the worst, you are encouraging women to become dependent on men who may or may not be good partners. Some may abuse the power they hold in the very worst of ways, becoming manipulative, controlling, and even abusive—financially, emotionally, physically… And where will you be when those women need help?”

I stare at Marissa. I’ve never seen her so vehement. One strand of hair is even out of place. The milkmaid seems stunned into silence. Marissa breathes deep before answering her own question: “You will be setting up your ring light and babbling about your bullshit sourdough starter as you film some more crappy content, blissfully unaware of the utter havoc you wreak on the world through the technology you use.”

Well. Mic drop. Marissa is practically steaming with rage and I’m so captivated, I can barely pull my eyes away to see how the milkmaid has registered all of this. But she seems oddly calm.

She stands up slowly, her chin high, with only the slightest quiver in her voice as she replies: “Just because you disagree with my lifestyle does not give you the right to judge it. I will not apologize. I am not a technophobe. And I am not coming back to this bullshit group of losers.” With that, she strides for the door, her pace fast enough that her skirt whips around her as if caught on a real gust of prairie wind.

But before she exits, she turns to face us, the tribunal, one last time, as she hisses: “And my sourdough starter is not bullshit.” And then she’s gone, slamming the door behind her so loudly, I feel the vibration of it chattering toward me through the concrete floor and up the legs of my metal chair.

A moment of silence passes, as we mourn the loss of another unapologetic soul. But as Marissa always says, you can’t start to do right until you admit you’ve done wrong.

“Well then.” Marissa is getting to her feet herself, her eyes cast on her wrist—like many of us, she doesn’t carry a phone but has an old watch to tell the time. “I think we’ll leave it at that for today. Same time next week? There are some new developments with AI I’d like to discuss.”

I sigh. The churn of technology never ends. I make a note in the small planner I carry in my pocket (no more digital calendars for me): Luddite’s Support Group. Same time next week. I grit my teeth as I grab one last cookie and head for the door, not bothering to say goodbye to Ayesha. It’s oatmeal raisin, but I don’t even care. I gnash my teeth, letting the dry crumbles scratch my throat and scrape my tongue. A small form of punishment. Will I ever stop atoning? Probably not.

I swallow the last bit of cookie down as I step outside into the gleaming sunlight. As my head swivels, I catch sight of the milkmaid, walking briskly down the street. She has a phone in her hand—a smartphone—and seems to be recording a video of herself. I can hear her chirping voice:

“Hey guys, so BIG news today. I am so excited, because I just bought something I have been wanting forever: a BUTTER CHURN! Now we can start churning our own butter from the cow milk we have on the homestead—none of that ultra processed, pasteurized stuff from the store!” She pauses ever so slightly, as if acknowledging a round of silent applause. “Check back later today to see me and the kids churning our own butter for the first time!”

She drops her arm from the awkward angle above her face, her video presumably over, and tosses her braid of blonde hair back over her shoulder before getting into a gleaming new Tesla. I watch her drive off, the perfect trad wife, headed for the homestead.

Some people never learn to say sorry. Some of us can’t say sorry enough. And some of us just need to get back to our sourdough starters.