Age. Sex. Height. Weight. Birthday. Zodiac sign. Chinese zodiac sign.
Neworks. Relationship status. Children. Body type. Ethnicity. Eye color. Hair color.
Breast size. Bra size. Penis size. Most attractive feature. Glasses or contacts. Shaved. Circumsized. Orientation. Education. Smoking. Drinking. Gambling. Drugs. Languages. Boxers or briefs. Favorite breakfast cereal mascot. Innie or outie. Second toe longer than big toe.
Profiles – advertising’s answer to the basic human need of social interaction. Let’s describe ourselves in easily-digested, quickly-scannable bite-sized information niblets. It’s like having the nutritional facts about your friends right there on the label. But how much does it really tell anyone?
I’m not shaking a stern finger and saying ‘human beings can’t reduced to a list’ or anything like that. Most of them can (unless, of course, you’re reading this. Then you’re alright.) I’m not talking about the possibility of people lying on their profiles or about this ‘right to privacy’ I hear so much about. People don’t want privacy – they want to be famous. They want to be known, even if just as a collection of loose facts on a computer screen.
No, I’m talking about the very desire to reduce oneself – a living, breathing, (somewhat) functioning human organism – to that loose collection of facts.
I was out a little while ago with a young lady in her mid-20s. Nice girl – smart, caring . . . ah, crap! I’m already reducing her to a list! Anyway, we were having a decent conversation over a few glasses of wine when she furrowed her brow, turned to me and said, “There’s just one thing I don’t understand about you, Jim.”
Just one thing? One thing?! No, let it go, son. Let’s hear what she has to say.
“Oh yes? What’s that?”
“Well . . . I don’t understand what you do for fun.”
I must have darted a look at my glass on the table as I started to stutter. She quickly added, “No, I mean besides going out for drinks and talking.”
“Er,” I stalled. “Um . . . sometimes I just . . . um . . . like to . . .” It was a real battle not to just say ‘have sex.’ “Um . . . occasionally I’ll have a nice drink and listen to music alone.” Pause to paint a puzzled look on my face. “Is that what you mean?”
“No! What do you for fun with other people?” Another quick look at the wine in front of me. “Besides drinking and talking!”
I was honestly beginning to feel like a fellow of limited mental means here. I was really trying to come with a genuine answer – hell, I was trying to come up with any answer – and was stumped. Did she want me to say ‘have sex’? Is that was this was leading to? What was there to do for fun with another person besides talk and/or screw? Why was this conversation so difficult for me?!
“I don’t understand what you’re saying!” I finally said, bouncing on my stool.
“What activities do you do?!”
Well.
That did it. Activities. Understanding broke through and brought in its trail visions of all the Baby Mozart, Focalin, play dates, dance lessons, recitals, child psychologists, Halloweens at community centers, ‘educational’ toys, spelling games, jargon from child-rearing experts and the trips in the SUV to bring her safely through her micro-organized childhood.
I remember watching it when it was going on. It was the 90s and I thought it was mildly funny that all these parents would take Britney and Courtney and Lindsey and Trevor back and forth to various practices, clubs, trips, secret brotherhoods, covens, and Nuremberg rallies while tumbleweed blew by deserted playgrounds and rusty BMX bikes lay against rotten, abandoned lemonade stands.
I’m not so sure it’s so funny now. All that structure has led to . . . well, more structure. Never having the chance to wander freely – figuratively or literally – through childhood, these kids are still demanding structured activities well into their 20s. Group ski weekends. Las Vegas discount package deals. Wednesday-night dodgeball leagues. And, of course, the structure inherent in their Facebook profiles.
Allow me to illustrate. Earlier that night I asked the same young lady, “What were you like as a child?”
“Well, I did ballet and volleyball and soccer and Brownies.”
Yeah, that didn’t actually answer my question, sweetheart. What were you like? I should have clued in then. I didn’t. Sorry. She was pretty.
But what if the question had been turned on me from her perspective? Would I have been any better at answering it? Or was the translation gap simply too vast?
“So, Jim, what did you do as a child?”
“Mostly I played. Sometimes on a bike, sometimes not. Sometimes with toys, sometimes not. One time I made a temple to the gods in an old pile of dirt by a construction site and started to worry that my friend was using it to worship Satan. He had a history of that kind of thing.”
“No! What activities?! Why are you being so difficult?”
“I swear I’m not trying to be difficult! That’s what I did as a child. I played. Honestly, nothing more organized than that.”
And it wasn’t. It still isn’t. When I say “wanna do something tonight?” to anyone I know, not a single one of them has to ask “what do you want to do?” Not one. Everyone I would spend time with knows fully well that ‘something’ translates here to ‘having a few drinks and talking.’ It’s that simple. If I were being really ambitious, I might organize going somewhere for dinner, but let’s not get crazy.
Essentially it means: ‘Let’s go out and play.’
And what of these grown children who had every free moment of their young lives scheduled for the maximum potential of educational and recreational ‘impact’?
If they want to come find me after their piano lessons, tell them I’ll be riding my bike. Without a helmet. Or knee pads. In the rain.
Never mind – don’t tell them. I’ll put it in my profile.
