Dear Amritsar,
I spend a lot of time in a virtual world called Blaisdell's Brazil. You know - for the waters?
They recently added a feature known as "back slapping," where you can write a compliment to somebody you have connected with, and it pops up in a bubble above their heads. "Plays well with other groklings." "Hardly ever falls off cliffs." "Has organized her porn collection so that it is fully searchable." Just pat them on the back, and what you say about them will follow them everywhere: pre-teen high school reunion, Turkish sauna and delight, retro futuristic malt shoppe. Everywhere.
The great thing about back slapping is that you can limit the people who have access to anything you post, including the people you post about. This means that the compliments you write don't have to be so, you know, complimentary.
For example, I wrote that my friend Bradley "shucks oysters like a girl." It's undeniable! If you've ever seen him try it, you'd agree!
Or, there was a time when I was unhappy with my friend Shirl the Swirl Girl because she refused to attend my square dance as an equal-sided quadrilateral, so I wrote: "SSG knows only four nouns, and two of them cannot be shared in polite company!"
Oh, and then there was the time Maryke Mumblecore convinced my smart house that if it let me in, I would give the kitchen cooties. It took me three weeks to convince it that I had been inoculated! So, naturally, the next time I saw her, I back slapped her with: "Thinks a sacrifice fly means killing an insect to appease the baseball gods."
Good times.
Only, lately, I've started to wonder: if I get so much pleasure out of writing about the faults of people I know - purely for their benefit even if they don't know what I've written - what are they saying about me? I try to be a good person, but I'm not perfect. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I - OH MY GOD, WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING ABOUT ME?
Marsha Morales
Hey, Babe,
Oscar Wilde once said, "The only thing worse than being talked about is having a cannonball rip one of your limbs off." History remembers the sentiment a little less violently, but I trust the point is clear.
Did you really believe that, of the 11,983,490 (what some people would call "12 million") plasers (player/users - I couldn't make up my mind) on Blaisdell's (I don't have anything clever to say here, but I have been trying to be more mindful of the rule of three since my pet llama Mort Snerd died) Brazil, you were the only one who hadn't been the subject of a negative comment?
People can be so silly sometimes.
Most people share news of others the same way they breath - frequently and through their mouths. New interpretations of cave paintings at Lascaux by Les Coe suggest that they were snarky comments about various tribe members' inability to throw a spear straight! And, Egyptian hieroglyphs? You don't want to know what the Pharaoh's children were accused of being up to in the catacombs of the pyramids!
When corporate executives meet, do you really think they talk about the future of the economy? Of course not! They talk about whose mistress owns the most porcelain ocelot figurines or whose hair has gone grey the fastest since their last meeting (inferred from who has spent the most time at the stylist). If you have ever wondered why the economy always appears to be on the brink of collapse, now you know: it's run by a bunch of middle-aged male yentas.
Of course, in the past, people would talk about those who were not in the room. Digital virtual reality technology has removed even that minor barrier. Yay digital virtual reality technology...I guess.
Since talking about others is human nature, you're not going to stop it, so you may as well learn to use it. Mott "The Hoopla" Nobody's instructive book Don't be a Yutz: Making What Other People Say Work to Your Advantage is a good place to start. Some readers may balk at having to admit their worst foibles to pre-empt other people's back slaps, but Nobody said virtual reality was for the faint-hearted.
In any case, the book has one piece of indisputable wisdom: as long as back slapping inevitably back slides into backbiting, watch your back.
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service's sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: The word gossip is derived from the Latin for "go sip," which is ironic considering that it usually comes in a torrent.