life, the universe, and ineffability
Aug. 9th, 2005 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
godreamOkay, so an informal poll has concluded that nobody actually gets what terms such as "date" mean. And both girls and guys are always complaining about how completely bewildering the opposite sex is. So here's the solution.
Back in Victorian times, ladies would carry fans which (besides, y'know, being an inadequate but better-than-nothing substitute for air conditioning if you are wearing a corset and a dress the size of a small city) served as a sneaky method of communication. I hate you, I love you, don't tell anyone, go away, kiss me already you bastard, all without actually having to say anything at all.
Tragically fans are a little less in vogue in the 21st century, and although the idea of the artfully held iPod has some charm to it, in the end I doubt it's quite so versatile (plus you probably don't want to risk dropping it just to tell someone "sorry, let's just be friends".) Instead, I propose adding comments into all relationship-related e-mail.
C'mon, think about it. In my book, trying to talk to guys I'm interested in rates as at least as difficult and incomprehensible as the worst kind of coding; it seems just as necessary to put in notes so that someone who didn't write the material in question can figure out what the point is. (If you're old-fashioned you can even opt for footnotes instead.) You can send your normal mysterious e-mail: "Hi, I've got this extra ticket to the xyz concert on Thursday night and I was wondering if you'd like to come with me?" And then you can say what you actually mean: /*I really like you, do you feel the same way?*/ or /*I only like you as a friend but you're the only person I know who can stand band xyz so please come/* or /*I'm not sure yet how I feel about you but I'm curious enough to want to find out./*
(You wouldn't even have to limit it to romantic relationships. "I'm sorry I can't make the dinner but I'm terribly unavoidably busy that night. /*I'd like to see you but if I have to make conversation with your sketchy cousin one more time I'm going to start killing things./*")
And of course nobody would be allowed to directly acknowledge the comments (just like a compiler, you're not allowed to officially notice them in any way), it'd be a major social faux pas. You could actually explain how you felt without having to admit that you were doing so, and getting offended at comments would be totally strictly against the rules -- so you could be completely direct and honest and none of this playing hard-to-get, reading body language, picking up emotional radar bullshit would have to exist at all. So there.
Back in Victorian times, ladies would carry fans which (besides, y'know, being an inadequate but better-than-nothing substitute for air conditioning if you are wearing a corset and a dress the size of a small city) served as a sneaky method of communication. I hate you, I love you, don't tell anyone, go away, kiss me already you bastard, all without actually having to say anything at all.
Tragically fans are a little less in vogue in the 21st century, and although the idea of the artfully held iPod has some charm to it, in the end I doubt it's quite so versatile (plus you probably don't want to risk dropping it just to tell someone "sorry, let's just be friends".) Instead, I propose adding comments into all relationship-related e-mail.
C'mon, think about it. In my book, trying to talk to guys I'm interested in rates as at least as difficult and incomprehensible as the worst kind of coding; it seems just as necessary to put in notes so that someone who didn't write the material in question can figure out what the point is. (If you're old-fashioned you can even opt for footnotes instead.) You can send your normal mysterious e-mail: "Hi, I've got this extra ticket to the xyz concert on Thursday night and I was wondering if you'd like to come with me?" And then you can say what you actually mean: /*I really like you, do you feel the same way?*/ or /*I only like you as a friend but you're the only person I know who can stand band xyz so please come/* or /*I'm not sure yet how I feel about you but I'm curious enough to want to find out./*
(You wouldn't even have to limit it to romantic relationships. "I'm sorry I can't make the dinner but I'm terribly unavoidably busy that night. /*I'd like to see you but if I have to make conversation with your sketchy cousin one more time I'm going to start killing things./*")
And of course nobody would be allowed to directly acknowledge the comments (just like a compiler, you're not allowed to officially notice them in any way), it'd be a major social faux pas. You could actually explain how you felt without having to admit that you were doing so, and getting offended at comments would be totally strictly against the rules -- so you could be completely direct and honest and none of this playing hard-to-get, reading body language, picking up emotional radar bullshit would have to exist at all. So there.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-11 07:34 pm (UTC)Different emoticons can mean different things to different people, though (and it's rarely ever what most "emoticon lexicons" on the internet will say). So maybe it's not any better. Was the fan language actually explicitly described somewhere, or did it just naturally come to mean something that people had to interpret? If the former, one could, perhaps, try to summarize the subtext of emoticons in a similar manner (rather than just the translation of what it is supposed to visually represent).
Also, hi. I'm Chris. I know that guy *points up at
no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 12:44 pm (UTC)Now there are a zillion websites out there that'll tell you about fans; I don't know if back when it actually mattered there was somewhere an explicit written vocabulary of fans. (I have this vision of a classroom of kids swishing and flicking like some strange version of Harry-Potter-with-fans while a teacher criticizes -- "no, left cheek, you're saying exactly the opposite of what you mean to! I said drop the fan, not throw it! Half open at your lips, you're asking him to kiss you not have sex with you!" -- but somehow I sorta doubt that was how it went.)
Emoticons are interesting, although I feel like there's still more ambiguity than I'd like. Nice and concise, though.