How do you cement a romantic relationship? With a ring? A dinner with the folks? A switch in your relationship status on Facebook?
All those methods are oh-so archaic, my friends. The latest way to tell the world that you’ve got a sweetie is the usie.
The usie is, according to the Los Angeles Times, the “couple’s version of a selfie.” The taking and posting of an usie couldn’t be simpler, really. Push one button, and you capture the image. A couple more clicks and it’s up on Facebook or Instagram or whatever social network you happen to fancy.
But the process of deciding when to post is, according to the Times’ Chanté Griffin, fraught with decisions: “How soon is too soon? When is it appropriate to whip out the phone and huddle for an “usie”? Should you ask permission first? And if the pic is greenlighted, is the assumption that the person is agreeing to a public post!?”
There’s a certain irony in the column. Griffin says that she and her beau haven’t yet taken their first usie, but she is writing a column all about their relationship for a major American newspaper. Still, she insists that there’s something significant in the first couples-oriented selfie you take and post:
An “usie” says that this shared moment together is really something; something worth documenting, something worth remembering. An “usie” also says that we are something. It’s a digital memento, or proof, that there really is an us.
My wife and I celebrated our 29th anniversary a couple of months ago. We did not take a usie to commemorate the big day. And even if we did, I’m not the sort to post such pictures often on Facebook, much less a professional blog. But in an effort to make our relationship “official,” I thought I’d post one now.
See that? We’re now official.
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