eAssuage

I have reached the conclusion that any and every difficult situation--namely an awkward comment made on a chat conversation, or a really difficult email that must be sent--can be mollified with the simple addition of a colon and a closed parentheses. A dash may also be added into this formula if you want to be fancy. Our generation is the IM generation, and what was once thought as a kind of a hokey and corny way to tell people how you feel on the internet is now a necessary addition to almost every conversation that is held online. I don't know about anyone else, but I use the smiley sometimes if I say (or type) something that comes off a little awkward, or if something that is not completely kosher escapes my fingers before common sense kicks in.

Exhibit A:

me: what are you doing tonight?
loserfriend99: I dunno, probably nothing
me:oh ok
loserfriend99: i dunno, it feels like none of my friends ever want to hang out anymore
me: hmmmm
do you think its b/c of your body odor, your fashion sense, or your lack of ability to sustain a conversation?
:-)


Just like that I have catapulted my backhanded insult into the land of sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek, where nothing can truly be taken personally. For all my friend knows I was just teasing, even though my actual intention was to share with them traits of their personality that I abhor. See? No one gets hurt. All with the stroke of 2-3 keys.

Exhibit B

boyfriend4ever: What do you want to do on Vday?
I'll do anything you want
I just rented out a 5 star restaurant in the city
afterwards we can stroll through the park.....
....where a 12 piece orchestra will be serenading us with all of "our songs"
but thats only if you want to
what do you think
.........
Pooky bear?
playersgottaplay72: Sorry, I don't think I'll be able to come....i was planning on going out with my other, more attractive boyfriend that night.....thanks though ;-)


What you are experiencing right now is the cognitive dissonance that the previous chat evoked. The girl managed to weasel her way out of a potentially messy break up with a one-liner, and her icing of choice on this cake of doom was the wink smiley, spunky cousin of the normal emoticon. The boyfriend wants to be angry, but her thoughtful gesture has convinced him the girl would totally do it if she hadn't had previous obligations. Are you getting it?

I know that I am preaching to the choir here, for you all are well-versed with the healing power of the smiley. I will just end this by saying that perhaps we can extend this magical tool into other arenas? Perhaps there would not be as much animosity between gangs on the streets if instead of signs, they threw up a ":-P!!" in an intense duel. Perhaps the divorce rate would reach a significant decrease if husbands and wives would hurl "wink! tongue out! mad face tongue out!" instead of insults at each other. Perhaps politics would not be so messy if opposing parties would just end every filibuster with a mutual smiley-exchanging session. I'm just saying.

We very well might have world peace on our hands.

Don't screw it up, losers :-)