For a long time people have
resorted to writing letters when expressing feelings. This would be logically
contradictory, because one would assume that in expression of feelings, a face
to face delivery would prove to be of great advantage since one can use facial
and hand gestures and expressions to better “express” things. But I guess the
problem with a face to face rendezvous is the fact that you can’t undo
anything. If you say something stupid or show how nervous you really are, it
becomes difficult to take it back or change what has happened. But then, one
can argue that this problem is equally present for written letters – in fact in
this case the writer doesn’t even have the advantage of being able to see the
reactions of the recipient and change a sentence midway. Thus we come to the
momentously tricky question of why have love letters been so popular a means
for expression for so long.
In the earlier times one could
understand that lack of means of communication as well as logistical
constraints would have favoured the written letters as the latter can be
written at one’s leisure and transported through a multitude of ever-willing
messengers. Another major advantage of the written letter was that it allowed young
men, in the pre-Google days, to rely on well-intentioned friends or
acquantainces to compensate for one’s lack of knowledge about market practices –
especially successful ones – in conquests of such delicate nature. Of course,
one could also subscribe to the rather dramatic usage of ink-substitutes like
blood etc. to put one’s case across in stronger terms.
Cut to the present day, the written
word affords more benefits. A guy who may be petrified at the idea of going and
pouring his heart out to his female object of affection may write a two-bit
love note and find himself suddenly being described as being “cute” or “sweet”
by the same lady for the same. Not that it is necessarily a good thing to
happen for the young man – as that reaction may mean absolutely anything at all
– some of them even complete literal opposites of the words.
It may simply mean that the lady
has concluded that the guy is a completely harmless creature and is actively now
considering getting herself a pet whose behavior matches that of the guy in
question.
It may also indicate that the guy
is categorized as a boy rather than a man, and his status is very similar to
that of the little sparrow which comes to her balcony every day morning and
makes likeable noises. Her impression in this case may be that he wouldn’t know
what to do if he is told that her parents are out for the weekend; even after
underlining the fact that she was alone.
Alternatively, it may have been a
result of something as innocuous as the pink spotted socks he was wearing when
last seen by the lady in question, and may therefore be only a function of the
colour and pattern of what he has literally landed in.
But we digress from the main question at hand.
One ends this little note by
presenting a set of collated statistics on the subject and leave the subject
open for debate and application.
- More than 82% of relationship proposals in the US and about 73% of those in India are initiated by the male gender.
- The success hit ratio of relationship proposals in the BRIC countries is estimated to be averaged around 1 : 17.3
- The hit ratio seems to be strongly correlated to the language used – those in English have less than half the probability of success than those in any other language. ( This may be partially because a lot of other languages – Hindi for example, doesn’t have direct equivalents of “cute/sweet”. It may be worthy to note here that Bengalis fare quite similar to those who have used English – again probably because Bengali language has something called “a shona”)
- 43% of females, on receiving a love note on a mobile accept that their first notion was that it is a forwarded joke. 37% of them also accept that they forwarded it to their friend list as well before later realizing that it was a private communication.
- 89% of males in India who had rejected a proposal admit that they were still friends with the female who had proposed, and spent an average of 1.8 hours a week in talking to her with content categorized under “providing emotional support”.
- 69% females admit that they made a mistake in rejecting an erstwhile proposal because they were waiting for their prince on a white horse. ( Come on man – I mean how many people own a horse in the first place nowadays ? )
- Only 8% males believe that they made a mistake in rejecting an erstwhile proposal. More than 66% of the males who rejected one believe that the female who had proposed was an ever bigger b**ch that what they believed at the time they made the decision. ( A related statistic may be that about 86% of the males between the age group of 40 and 50 who believe in the presence of God say that their belief really got strong during the period when they were 25 to 30 )
- 84% of the recipients of love letters or notes as one may be inclined to describe sometimes say that it was written in the form of poetry. 47% report that a line or two from a famous movie was used, and about 77% report that the proposer had claimed that he/she would find it impossible to continue to live if the proposal was rejected.
- Lastly, the author of this piece has used the written form for 50% of the 2 proposals he has made in life, and is still perennially mulling over the effect of his success at the same.
