With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm.
-George Orwell, 1984
Weddings and funerals: the great levelers. At these events, we come face-to-face with people we had not seen for a long time, fifteen years in our case. Well, not in real life, anyway. We had seen the posed selfies, the holiday snaps and the carefully arranged baby shots. We had ‘liked’ their childrens’ first day of school and LOL’d at their cat’s crazy misadventures.
When we meet, we hug, we measure each other against our own standards. “You’re looking good.” “You look just the same.” We subtly assess their clothes, shoes and how many greys they have in their hair. Some are more subtle than others.
Then, as the time goes on, we tease apart the fabric of pretense. Small talk turns to more serious talk with the lubrication of alcohol and copious waiting time. Perhaps, the job that pays for the fantastic shoes is taking a huge toll on the family. Or maybe while the perfect travel snap was being taken, painted toenails perfectly placed in the sand, the children were crying and the parents were yelling. You would never know.
We can tell these things when talking with someone face to face, through word choice and the myriad of gestures and statures we subconsciously read, called ‘body language’. Even the length of a pause between talk tells us a lot. The humanness is being taken out of everything. Our lives are being whitewashed.
Do we ‘know’ these people anymore? We probably know what they had for dinner last weekend but do we know what their last big fight was about at home? How many times have they called in sick from work because they are depressed? What is their greatest dream? What’s on their bucket list?
People are feeling more and more disconnected from others. Perhaps, we all need to unwrap a little and let the real person show more often.