Standing Room | 18 July 2009

All right, so perhaps I was a mite distracted. I was busy stirring a beetroot risotto, the television was on in the background, I had the telephone tucked under my chin and was also trying to figure out the solution to 11 down in the crossword (‘desire returns to writer covering S&M, spellbound’ in ten letters), but all these vaguely mitigating circumstances don’t really excuse my outburst.

‘Goodbye. Thank you. September 24th at 10.30’. I said. And then just before I hung up and added more stock to the pot I inexplicably blurted out the codicil ‘love you’. Just like that. It wouldn’t have mattered had I been arranging a clandestine assignation with a lover, but I was actually just securing an appointment for a mammogram at the London Clinic. I blushed.

Saying ‘I love you’ (and not meaning it) is a form of emotional Tourette’s. I’m not alone — being excessively ‘loved-up’ is becoming a modern-day malaise. We’ve all become ridiculously promiscuous with our sentiments. We’re communication whores, and in the process become strangely anaesthetised against true feelings. Encouraged by a 24/7 ‘thought-sharing’ culture, our daily life is so relentlessly punctuated by emails, tweets, texts and status updates that I think it’s caused us subconsciously to cross the Rubicon of personal privacy. We’re starting to reveal all, all too often.

We’ve overdosed on emotion by allowing ourselves to become verbally incontinent, and in doing so have inadvertently debased the most coveted of all human prizes.

‘Love you’ is undoubtedly the new ‘goodbye’. Take note of how often one terminates a conversation with a declaration of faux adoration. I am not the only woman loving the receptionist at the London Clinic. We don’t mean what we say; we’re just acting on emotional auto-pilot. We’re fast becoming a nation that will shortly only recognise a stiff upper lip if it’s been surgically Botoxed.

A recent (monumentally pointless) poll commissioned by Steve Henry, author of You Are Really Rich: You Just Don’t Know It Yet asked 1,000 people to rate 50 ordinary life events — such as getting married, having children or going on holiday — and rate them against winning the lottery. Being told ‘I love you’ scored second (valued at £154,849) — although I’m presuming Henry insisted his focus group only tick this particular box if they were seeking confirmation from those they loved back, as opposed to random strangers.

Last week a friend of mine ended a conversation with a man coming to fit new carpets in her bedroom by saying ‘big kiss’. She was rather taken aback by her inappropriate gush of emotional Tourette’s but managed to pinpoint the root of her verbal incontinence. ‘I say “big kiss” to my grandchildren all the time, and I guess it’s become embedded in my brain,’ she explained sheepishly. As charming and heartfelt as these sweet nothings are when murmured to close family members and those we really adore, they are evocative words that need to be severely rationed and reined-in or else they will end up meaning nothing at all. We will have unintentionally emotionally bankrupted ourselves. Time to regroup and rephrase. I love you and goodbye. Not.