I’ve recently developed a callous indifference towards the torrent of amateur self-analysis that’s infiltrating our everyday pattern of speech. I’m over ‘issues’. Way too many people have way too many issues for my liking. And too many people I don’t care about feel compelled to ‘share’ their issues with me. Last week people started ‘gathering’, and now I fear gathering is set to become the new big issue. Ever since Kate Winslet dramatically implored herself to ‘gather’ at the Golden Globes (surely ‘get a grip’ would have worked just as well?) I’ve witnessed two perfectly ordinary mates inexplicably ‘gather’ — rather than just admit they’d lost track of what they were saying. It’s as though everyone is suddenly auditioning for a guest slot on Room 101. Zeitgeist psychobabble is just about acceptable when used with extreme irony (preferably accompanied by wiggling fingers pretentiously held at ear level to denote imaginary quotation marks around the word), but bloody irritating now that it’s jumped off the couch and gone mainstream.
I was in Starbucks last week when a woman loudly asked to speak to the manager. She had an issue she wanted to share concerning her coffee. I got pathetically overexcited, assuming she was about to challenge publicly the providence of her Fairtrade Ethiopian bean or produce a dead cockroach she’d found lurking in her latte. No such luck. She merely wanted to point out — at 7 a.m. in the morning — that this was the second time this month her espresso macchiato was heavy on the foam. For her this was an issue worth taking up with the manager and sharing with all the customers. Pleeease. Enough. Why can’t everyone just go back to being cross? Or complain in simple language as opposed to acting like they’ve been asked to chair an AA meeting?
Now I see Facebook has added a new application called 25 Random Things that invites members to post cringingly introspective confessionals. Forget status updates. Random Things takes self-obsession to new heights. I am now tagged daily by cyberspace acquaintances who are keen to share the fact that they have a phobia about getting on a number 22 bus, wear cashmere socks in bed or once had constipation that lasted for a week. We’re rapidly turning into a mini-me generation that lives to trivialise, indulge and analyse every single emotion or thought we have.
Twenty years ago when my children were small we lived in Los Angeles. I remember eavesdropping on a conversation my four-year-old daughter India was having with her best friend Annie in the back of the car. They were having a catfight about whose turn it was to hold a stuffed monkey. India eventually won. ‘You’ve really hurt my feelings,’ said Annie. There was an ominous silence as India slowly digested this news followed by a long pause. ‘My Daddy says we’re English and we don’t have wanky feelings,’ she announced solemnly. If that conversation took place today India would probably be taken into care. I’m just waiting for Annie to share it with the world on Facebook.
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