Growing up, you looked for pain points in your friends. Jabs you could throw at your disposal,

sometimes to get over on someone, sometimes to react to a jab coming your way. I don't want to say

it was only a boy thing because some of the nastiest jabs were thrown by girls. And I also, with the hindsight

of decades now, realized that this was cultural. Not that ribbing friends as a form of camaraderie

is exclusive to the 80s in Jersey. I personally believe the British have some of the best

sarcasm in the world and mercilessly wield it,

but there are people from other times and places where such a form of bonding is not currency,

and who, to be frank, loathe it. I can't help people from other times and places,

which is to say we haven't really caught up to the internet yet.

So many people madly typing into the sky can't possibly coordinate well, much less understand one another.

The results of someone tone-pleasing how many fucks I employ only results in more fucks being used and less fucks given,

which has nothing to do with malice. The language just isn't for you, which is fine,

but that doesn't mean that that form of language isn't fine, which, if that's your assumption,

definitely isn't fine. And yet, even with all the ways we

relate to one another and all the ways we fail to relate to one another, I imagine there are

certain communication styles that, even on a global level, we can all understand. And I know that's a rough demand. An old friend of mine was

traveling through North Africa decades ago. And she wanted to show the village shopkeeper her sign of

approval for the goods on display. She put her index finger and thumbed together in a circle,

with the three remaining digits flailed out like a peacock.

You know, the sign for nice back in New York City, only later to learn that she had told the woman to fuck off.

Even simple panamimes can inadvertently be weaponized. But I would expect, or at least hope,

that we'd all agree on the function of Nazi salutes. I mean, if there was ever a gimmy in the broad spectrum of bodily contortions, this would be it. But even here I'm apparently wrong, or so I learned after reading

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