Dear Amritsar,
My lover Eriq has gotten a tasteful tattoo of a QR code - you know, those blocky square things that contain information that is revealed when you point a cellphone at them. Eriq says it's no worse than a birthmark, and I suppose it does look something like a birthmark...for somebody who has several hundred lifetimes of negative karma to balance out!
Honestly - I don't know how tasteful having a QR code on your forehead is. I suspect Eriq likes the idea of having phones pointed at him because it allows him to pretend that he is his favourite actor: Fabio. If only. Still, this is the way young people have it these days, so who am I to say otherwise?
Oh, don't be so judgmental! Eriq is very mature for his age - he just turned 23, but he could hold his own in conversations with...24 year-olds. Possibly even 25 year-olds. Seriously, you'd think I was robbing the self-rocking cradle that wirelessly sends updates on a child's sleep status to Twitter every 10 minutes just because I happen to be 54.
Oh, now, I really must insist that you not be so judgmental! You've heard that 80 is the new 60? Well, a 30 year age difference is the new 10 year age difference! You can't argue with math that simple.
You wouldn't find my relationship with Eriq so disgusting if I was a 54 year-old man and he was Eriqa, a 23 year-old woman. You might find it creepy, but that's not as bad as outright disgust, and, anyway, you might also find yourself secretly admiring me. So, even if you can argue with the math, try and accept our relationship for what it is.
Oh, but, my, my that's not what I wanted to write to you about. Honestly, I don't know where that came from. The sideways glances...the tittering behind the backs of hands...the hateful messages posted to my Facebook wall - people can be so cruel, don't you think?
But, no, seriously, I am writing to ask about the QR code. When I first scanned it with my cellphone, I was delighted to find that Eriq danced like Fred Astaire. I should have been suspicious, I suppose that somebody his age knew who Fred Astaire was. As it happened, the first time we went dancing, he was so out of step that he nearly crippled me, but I assumed that that was just because he was really, really drunk.
Then, there was the time he tried to prove what the QR code said about him being a gourmet chef. Unfortunately, the roast lamb wasn't as tender or moist on the inside as it should have been, and the chocolate truffles he whipped up for desert had a slight but unfortunate zinc aftertaste. What a disaster!
I'm beginning to suspect that everything my cellphone read off the QR code on Eriq's forehead was a lie. Did he really work on top secret weapons programmes at Los Alamos? I don't know! Did he really play sax on Elvis Costello's National Ransom album? I'm beginning to think it's highly unlikely. Was he really the first person to masturbate on the space station? Oh, Amritsar, I want to believe, really, I do, and yet...
Could...could Eriq's QR code lie to me?
Angeline
Hey, Babe,
Since time immemorial, people have used the most up-to-date technologies to lie about themselves.
Ancient hieroglyphs lie. Did you really think Egyptian rulers were as thin as they are depicted on walls and ceremonial nutcrackers? Of course not! The Egyptians depicted in hieroglyphs actually make Jabba the Hutt look like Twiggy. (And, yes, I'm embarrassed that I know either of those references, let alone both.)
Do you know what the first message sent by telegraph was?
i have eyes like piercing blue skies stop a physique like james burke stop vast estates where pheasants frolic with peasants stop you may doubt, but surely, the telegraph cannot but tell the truth stop
Every word of the message was a lie. Even the fact that it was the first message sent by telegraph was a lie.
Then, there was the case of George Loopenhicker, who, to prove his sexual prowess, distributed a three hour Betamax tape of himself and a partner in 1973. Close examination of the tape showed that it was actually 15 seconds of sexual activity that had been put on a loop, but he had managed to fool at least five women into sleeping with him before the trick was discovered (and at least two women afterwards).
Do QR codes lie? Oh, Babe, do Astrebelichean warthogs have a mating ritual dance that lasts for seven years?
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service's sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: The problems in relationships can be boiled down to three basic types: I can't get what I want; I don't know what I want; I don't want what I have. Everything else is commentary. Fortunately for me, commentary pays really well!