This is what can happen: you can be in restaurant, and a couple of things on the menu aren’t available. Or you can ring a customer service line to address some issue with your phone or electricity bill. But the person on the other end of the phone line can’t do any of the things you want. Or a person who promised you a lift to work texts to say they are going to pretend to be sick today.
And after telling you that you’re not going to get what you’d hoped for, these people will often say: Is that all right?
You’ve asked for something that cannot be provided, so by definition it is not all right. Not burning-down-the-world or thumping-the-table not all right, but not all right nonetheless.
It’s a curious phrase to use in a situation like this, as if the person who has been failed is now required to comfort the person who has done the failing. Being Irish, we will of course say: yes, it’s fine, and b***h about it afterwards. The person who has done the failing, however, can come close to convincing themselves that they didn’t fail at all: that the interaction ended on a positive note. That’s the important thing.
Why do Irish people slather everything with insincere positivity?
Daughter Number Two and partner finally found an apartment to rent. People keep asking what their secret is
We wanted Daughter Number Four to experience something a bit more foreign. We got more than we bargained for
Kids’ lives are being constrained by their parents’ fears
This faux-positivity seems to be slathered over much of our communication, both in the real world and online. People squeal with enthusiasm over the most minor achievements. They explode with excitement when they meet someone they saw the day before. Because it doesn’t achieve the required decibel level, the traditional muttered greeting of “How’s it going?” is in danger of becoming extinct.
We’re getting this, of course, from our phones. While much of social media drools with naked hatred, an opposing force seems to have grown up which consists of nothing but tripping-through-the-forest positivity, best exemplified by posts that begin with the words: “A little bit of personal news ...”
Rather like the digital universe – a place of 0s and 1s – humans are happily reducing themselves to that binary form, where our self-presentation can only be one thing or another
Some examples of personal news: I finally had that cyst removed from my back. We’ve just paid off the mortgage. My shoes are killing me. These online announcements are not personal, but professional: I just got a new job. I’m tremendously excited because my book/play/album/podcast is about to come out.
It’s a well-established truism that on social media, we are the product. And many of us are leaning into that idea through self-promotion. On the face of it, nothing wrong with that, yet it’s all presented in an oddly ritualistic way: the poster declares their excitement, then hangs around to thank people who – with equal excitement – congratulate them. A cursory look at the language would imply that these people are all great friends. Yet one can only presume that they are not: otherwise, they would have already known about the book/play/album/podcast.
[ Things in Ireland have got better. So why doesn’t it feel better?Opens in new window ]
I’m far from the first person to notice this. Many psychologists contend that the effort required to keep a constant grin on our faces is in fact bad for us. Trying to be happy all the time will make you unhappy. Publications and websites, unable to phrase anything but in the most hyperbolic terms, have branded it “toxic positivity”. Arsenic is toxic. This is merely annoying.
Yes, I’m a vile curmudgeon. And yes, it is better than the other side of the digital street, where all the seething nutbags spew out their bile. But is that the only choice? Rather like the digital universe – a place of 0s and 1s – humans are happily reducing themselves to that binary form, where our self-presentation can only be one thing or another. Woke, or not. Deliriously happy, or not. There’s no nuance, no-somewhere-in the-middle, where the vast majority of human beings live.
Not that I’d be missing the pandemic, but it was a period during which it was socially acceptable to post about feeling down, or struggling, or even just a bit meh. But that ended and now everything is super-terrific again. And really, it’s not all right.