Saturday, March 10, 2012

Retronyms, Monikers, and the Pink Haired Lady


   
I attended with my husband at the hospital yesterday for his pre-op exam. While he was getting an ECG, I staked out the gift shop and ran into a former acquaintance of mine. Although I recognized her right away, (she has the cutest little pixie face that would look awesome under a hat), I couldn’t determine the context. 

Our conversation began with, “Excuse me, do I know you?” We progressed through the when’s and where’s, summarizing the last 29 years, and ended up exchanging business cards.

That’s a lie. She gave me her card (it’s impressive), and I dug through my purse but came up empty. If you’re not well organized by the age of 59, will you ever be?

My former cohort felt she needed to explain the fact that her email address contains the word ‘cougar’, so I got to thinking about how much we worry about the impression we leave with others. After all, when she knew me before, I was working as a nurse, and now I’m the pink-haired hat lady. What must she think?

How much of ourselves do we reveal through our selection of online monikers, blog titles, and Facebook images? And how much do we care? Are we free to be playful with our internet identity? When I registered for this blog, the titles I wanted—Hat Chat, Frock Talk, Vintage Verbiage—were unavailable. I considered Freelance Floozy, but what impression would that leave?

I enjoyed re-connecting with my former acquaintance today; a girl I knew from the days before retronyms like ‘snailmail’ became part of our lexicon—back when the impression we made on others resulted from our day to day, face to face, human interactions.    

Does anyone else agonize over this sort of thing, or is it just me?


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1 comment:

  1. Retronyms? Had I known 40 years ago that you would be using words like this today I likely would have proposed to you sooner.
    I'm loving the blog ... keep it up. :)

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