\Sweetie, in college, the only time a gesture of size is important is when it's a bulge below his waist,"" I shouted with older-sibling authority.
My seventeen-year-old sister raised her eyebrows and shot me a helpless stare as I rolled my eyes.
You know those eye-rolls you do when you're stubbornly refusing to admit your baby sister has just out-wisdomed you? Yeah, one of those.
What she insisted on and I ferociously opposed was the idea of a human need for what she calls ""a gesture of size""-a grandiose, personalized sign of caring that we all need every now and then to remind us we can still feel.
Simply put, a reminder that there's still a difference between human and computer.
With badass flippancy, I lectured her on the pointlessness of such ordeals. Because when it comes to deep emotional endeavors, I was proudly immune.
Having perfected the art of emotional invincibility, I've grown to automatically interchange the feeling-filled phrases, ""I'm upset and need to talk,"" ""I really like you,"" and ""you've hurt my feelings and I feel like a kicked kitten"" with these three remarks:
1. ""Uhh... rock 'n' roll, dude.""
2. ""Yeah man, whatever.""
3. ""Dude, you hungry?""
These three hollow constructions have bailed me out countless times when vulnerability tried to sneak its way into my busy days. But in this seemingly flawless, impenetrable disguise, I've somehow become cynical, advising my high school sister that bulging pants are enviable and feeling is not.
Here goes: Lexy, you were right. I think we do all need an honest ""gesture of size"" once in a while.
This is why last week, I selflessly decided I was ready to receive a pure, extravagant show of appreciation from a friend or even a remote acquaintance.
But making myself available for a grand gesture turned out to be more difficult than I had expected. Once I realized that lewd comments and animal noises were no way to approach a potentially intimate moment, I spent several sleepless nights confronting my attachment to distractions and aversion to anything meaningful.
The problem with many of us gesture seekers, I think, is that we're emotionally unavailable, but expect others to take an extremely personal leap. In our numb routine, we feel disappointed when we get no emotional feedback, though we never send those ""gesture-of-size-me"" vibes.
It might just be time for me to open up a bit, to only expect truth if I can provide some in return, to not worry so much about becoming a marketable person or a well-rounded person, a witty, awesome, well-liked person, but, for a while, just an honest person.
A person, perhaps, who isn't afraid to look foolish when she surprises her friends with the grand gestures they deserve.
Emily? Vulnerable and legitimately caring? I used to think the idea was about as likely as a city-wide electrical outage stemming from a mysterious, panic-inducing underground fire.
Well, guess I was right.
ewinter@wisc.edu.
