A truly feminine woman should always retain a little air of
mystery – Louis Jourdan
One of the funniest things I ever heard came during a bridal
shower I attended about 40 years ago. As the prospective bride opened a gift,
revealing a beautiful negligee, a prim, 90ish little old woman (think Dana
Carvey playing The Church Lady) said, “When my brother was getting married, he
asked a local seamstress to make a nightgown for his intended, but he asked
that she make it extra-long. Confused, the seamstress asked if his fiancé was
very tall. He said, “No. I just want to prolong the suspense on my wedding
night of finally finding out what’s under that nightgown when I pull it over
her head.”
We all erupted in laughter, but this spicy little anecdote illustrates
how much mystery enlivens life. It’s mystery that keeps us reading to the end
of a “whodunit” and spurs us to binge-watch a Netflix series (Guilty--The Last Kingdom should come with an
addiction warning!) to see how things turn out. The suspense of finding out who
would be your “Mystery Date” made the game of the same name one of the most
popular ones for girls for the last 40 plus years.
But we are living in a different world today, and I’m afraid
we are losing some of the mystery. Today, people reveal everything about
themselves online--what they’re eating, where they’re going, what they’re
watching and thinking. Who they’re in love with or who they hate. They post
gruesome photos of injuries, details of bodily functions, and at times it seems
every thought that pops into their head, which is fine, but I noticed something
this holiday season that I hadn’t before.
From Thanksgiving to the New Year, I was in the company of a
lot people-extended family, friends, neighbors, former classmates, etc.--many
of whom are online, and I found the conversations I had with those who weren’t
online frequently or at all to be much more satisfying. It was refreshing to
learn about their lives in their own words, hear the inflections in their
voices, and see the looks in their eyes and read their body language instead of
seeing words on a page accompanied by an emoticon. And it was as equally
satisfying to reply in person to them and express my genuine emotion and
thought.
Maybe it’s just me, but most of the conversations I had with
those I see online began like this, “I see on Facebook that you’re . . . ” and
instead of getting a first-person account of something, I received a recap of
what had already been posted online. In fact, at a couple of large gatherings,
I’m ashamed to admit that the following conversation took place a few times in
my head: There’s so and so. I should go talk to her. Then that little
devil-on-your-shoulder voice replied, Why
bother? You already know what’s going on from Facebook.
Although I love and use social media as much as the next
person, I’m thinking of holding back some of myself. Do you really care what
I’m eating, watching, reading or where I’m going? Probably not. I’m apt to take
the advice of one of my favorite childhood authors, Carolyn Keene, who penned
the Nancy Drew series of books. She wrote in Nancy’s Mysterious Letter: Do
act mysterious. It always keeps them coming back for more.
This article originally appeared in the February 2019 issue of Northern Connection magazine.
