The Grand Gesture

The Grand Gesture is quite obviously something true in fairy tales or worse the romantic comedy. We spend so much of our young life and adolescence believing in fairytales that when we get to our late 20s and 30s we are mortified by the fact that fairytales are not real. In fact they are so far from real that the whole time they actually were make believe. Who would have known?

Forgive me for a lifetime of naievte and wishful thinking but now the real problems begin. You see I don’t know how to start a relationship without the foolproof formula of a romantic comedy. Girl meets boy. Girl likes boy. They have a disagreement about something and then they sort it all our just before the finale and a happily ever after. I know that that is all a little far fetched and I am seriously not expecting Colin Firth to come flailing out of my park pond in a white, wet t-shirt but I didn’t ever think a phone call was too much to ask.

In the day of text, facebook and twitter, when did we lose sight of verbal, and if it’s not too much to ask face to face, communication. It doesn’t just stem from the boy-girl thing but it seems my upcoming birthday puts me into an obvious generation gap. A friend of mine recieved an apology last week via text. The incident warranted at least a phone call if not a face to face conversation and yet a text message was deemed by the third party as more than appropriate.

My gravest concern- well there are two. One – Is there such a generational gap between the late 20s and early 20s that social etiquette has disappeared (or for those of you who can read between the lines – am I really getting that old?) but secondly is there going to be a new type of human that chooses not to deal with conflict or social uncomfortableness face to face?

In 2010 we organise dates through text message – almost to the point that after the first time we meet, we may not even speak to each other till a second date, we apologise through shortened words and we find friends through facebook. For just a few days I want the world to remember what it was like to talk. To make a grand gesture. A show of action, an act of faith – some indication that we as people are worth more than “c u @8?”

If only things were that simple. If only I was able to read the intentions of an abbreviation the way that you can read the intonation of a voice, if only I could know what ‘c’ was being referred to like I can read the lean or brush of an arm and if only sorry meant as much spelt ‘soz’ as it does when said with heartfelt sincerity to my face. I guess I will just have to accept the growing fact that I am getting old and maybe there is nothing wrong with ‘soz’ but a little bit of both worlds would make us all feel a little bit more special.