I am We, and We are Us

Yes, I confess, I use the word "I" a lot.

Criticism has flowed and ebbed over the years around my use of the first person singular, but who among us is innocent? Let she or he who is without "I" cast the first stone.

One of my ex-fiances was especially hateful. He claimed, based on my use of the word "I," that I was self-absorbed and self-righteous and self-(fill in mean word here), and then he had the nerve to proclaim that he loved me! I was supposed to be grateful that he would overlook my self-indulgence, that he could see past my self-aggrandizement to the shining beauty within.

His objections might not have irritated me so much had I not spent several thousand dollars and countless therapy sessions learning how to say "I." My counselor taught me that since I am the only person whose feelings I can truly express, I would do best to communicate in sentences beginning with "I," to wit, "I am uncomfortable with your objections to my use of the word 'I,' " rather than: "You are unbelievably stupid." Do you see where using an "I" statement could be way less inflammatory?

But to my ex-fiance, starting a sentence with "I" was the equivalent of dousing him with gasoline and tossing a lighted match his way.

Naturally, I bought everything he said about me and it took about 10 years to feel good about myself again, I'm sure he'd be happy to know.

Recently, I discovered that in his retirement, he is hosting a Web site on which he blogs about blogs. He cruises the Internet, looking for blogs that he likes; or he visits a blog on someone's recommendation. Then he, in essence, reviews them.

The amazing thing is: He never uses the word "I."

Hats off to the man. I knew he was clever, but this is way beyond clever. I wish I'd thought of this technique, which allows him to be totally self-absorbed and self-righteous without ever appearing to be so. In addition -- and this is the really awe-inspiring part -- his technique actually makes it seem as though there are other people who agree with every word he writes, people with whom he has conferred and with whom he has achieved a consensus, which gives the opinions expressed in his reviews a much greater weight. Wow. (A moment of reverent silence.)

You may have guessed that he has simply replaced the word "I" with the editorial "we." Maybe the "we" isn't editorial, you argue. Maybe he really does have a board meeting to discuss every blog reviewed on his site. Maybe he hands out surveys to complete strangers and compiles the results -- and of course, the complete strangers, being thoughtful, sensitive folk like him, always concur with his thoughtful, sensitive opinions.

Ha! I can guarantee that he is typing merrily away all alone in his den or study, passing judgment on all these blogs and expecting the rest of the world to accept his assessment as universal truth, all because of the almighty "We" that appears in just about every sentence.

Let's try it. Here's part of this blog post converted to We-speak:

Yes, we confess, we use the word "we" a lot.

Criticism has flowed and ebbed over the years around our use of the first person plural, but who among us is innocent? Let they who are without "we" cast the first stone.

One of our ex-fiances was especially hateful. He claimed, based on our use of the word "we," that we were self-absorbed and self-righteous and self-(fill in mean word here), and then he had the nerve to proclaim that he loved us! We were supposed to be grateful that he would overlook our self-indulgence, that he could see past our self-aggrandizement to the shining beauty within.

His objections might not have irritated us so much had we not spent several thousand dollars and countless therapy sessions learning how to say "we." Our counselor taught us that since we are the only person whose feelings we can truly express, we would do best to communicate in sentences beginning with "we," to wit, "We are uncomfortable with your objections to our use of the word 'we,' " rather than: "You are unbelievably stupid." Do you see where using a "we" statement could be way less inflammatory?

But to our ex-fiance, starting a sentence with "we" was the equivalent of dousing him with gasoline and tossing a lighted match his way.

Etc., etc., etc.

Isn't it incredible? Somehow we now come across as thoughtful and sensitive and believable, instead of resentful and vindictive and brimming with sour grapes. Now we are simply wryly rueful, poking fun at ourselves, dryly observant but humbly so. Don't you find yourself more sympathetic to the "we" than to the "I"?

We imagine our life today would be vastly different had we simply switched to We-speak back in our Savannah days.

But that was then, and we were I, and ours were my, and our "ares" were "ams," and our "weres" were "wases." And we must say, if something as innocent as our use of the word "I" threatened the relationship, it's a good thing we got out while we could.