Look at you. You’re a busy person. The peripheries of your life are constantly being stormed by a multitude of glittering yet ultimately meaningless distractions. The sheer, unrelenting tyranny of choice has overwhelmed you, and your to-do list grows longer by the minute. Time has become the most precious resource you have.
Then you hear a thud on your doorstep, and your heart sinks. It’s bloody Germaine Greer, isn’t it. She’s written you another 30,000-word love letter, just like the unsent one it has been revealed she wrote to Martin Amis back in 1976. She loves writing those. Oh, Jesus.
What are you supposed to do? You’re never going to have time to read it all; that’s for certain. You feel bad enough that you still haven’t read any of the books you got for Christmas, and now Germaine Greer has only gone and filled up another massive notebook with dense little loops of ink about all the depraved things she wants to do to your undercarriage. Great. Another DVD boxset relegated to the to-do list. Goodbye, The Wire. You were supposed to be quite good.
Because you’re going to have to read the whole letter. You can’t just flick through and memorise random passages to make it seem as if you’ve read it. This is Germaine Greer. She’s going to ask you about it. Of course she is. She’ll knock on your door, sit you down, start grilling you about your favourite bits, and that’ll be another afternoon gone. “Did you like the bit about your eyelashes?” she’ll ask. “What about the bit where I said that everyone hates your new book except for me because I think you’re sexy?” You know that she’s visited a canyon lately, so you can guarantee that she’s either compared it to a fanny or a bum somewhere – good old Germaine; it’s a classic riff of hers, used in her letter to Amis, and basically her Dead Parrot Sketch at this point, so you can probably get away with some light skimming there, at least.
Then, before she leaves, she’ll say: “Oh, by the way, I made you a mixtape,” and it’ll be another tarped-up shipping crate full of Coldplay albums. “Germaine,” you want to tell her, “Rein it in. Less is more, remember?”
Sure, when you’re writing a love letter – right in the first flush of desire, giddy with possibility – the urge is to tell your new partner everything. About who you are and what you like, about all the things you have in common and what you want from the world. You want the letter to replicate the night you met when everything else fell away, and the pair of you ended up talking until dawn. You want it to be a moment in time.
Which is fine but, God, what a nightmare it is to read. If this love letter is a statement of intent – and they all are – then it should at least try to retain an air of mystery. Don’t just dump it all out on the page in one go, because you’re simply building a cul-de-sac for yourself.
Let’s imagine that things go as well as they possibly can. You read her letter. You’re transfixed by the beauty of her prose and the tenderness of her feelings. You write a 30,000-word letter in response, and then you fall in love. You marry because you’re lovers and best friends, and you can’t imagine spending a second of your lives with anyone else.
But you’ve already said everything you have to say. Ten years down the line, Germaine will turn to you during Cash in the Attic and say: “Did I ever tell you what I like about your eyelashes?” and you’ll say: “Yes, I read it in your letter.” Silence. “You know that book you wrote?”
“That was also in the letter.”
More silence. “Hey, you know what the Grand Canyon looks like?” “OH I DON’T BLOODY KNOW, GERMAINE,” you’ll shout back. “DOES IT LOOK LIKE A BUM? INCIDENTALLY, HOW IS IT EVEN REMOTELY SEXY TO COMPARE A CANYON TO A BUM?”
And from that point onwards you’ll only be able to communicate in functional, resentful text messages about needing more bin bags. Everything else has already been said.
Germaine might have written those 30,000 words in good faith, but they left you both with nowhere to go. This kind of oversharing is why you had to unfollow her on Facebook.
What’s more, a letter like this is only going to come back and kick you both in the arse. If someone as brilliant as Germaine Greer writes 30,000 words of anything, then someone down the line is bound to want to publish it. All the secrets, all the whispered moments of intimacy you ever enjoyed together, will become public knowledge. All of it, out for everyone to see.
You know what Germaine Greer should have done? She should have just Snapchatted you a picture of her boobs instead. Maybe an aubergine emoji, too, if she meant it. That way, the whole thing would have been over and done with in 10 seconds, and you could have both continued to discover each other at your own pace. What’s more, she wouldn’t have ruined canyons for you, either.
