DEAR MISS MANNERS: I realize we live in an electronic world, where it now seems EVERYTHING is on display. Some young friends of ours have announced their engagement, which is happy news indeed. However, when we next saw them, they insisted on showing us the video of the potential groom asking his intended to be his wife. Allegedly, the woman knew nothing about being filmed until various onlookers popped out of the woodwork to congratulate them. In the video, the poor woman looks slightly terrified.
Am I the only person in the world who finds this tacky? What ever happened to two people sharing private, intimate moments that belong only to them? Must the world witness everything?
GENTLE READER: You are not the only person. There are two of us, but probably not many more.
Nowadays, Plato would have to revise his quotation from Socrates that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” It is now the unpublicized life that is thought to be not worth living. Miss Manners would be wary of continuing to watch the posts of people who believe that the world wants to share their most intimate moments.