Dear Urban Diplomat: How do I apologize to my girlfriend for being naked on the Internet?
Dear Urban Diplomat,
My girlfriend and I recently rented a condo at Blue Mountain with some university friends, thinking we’d hit the slopes. Instead, we spent the snowless weekend getting hammered and, on one particularly rowdy night, streaking through the village. In a drunken stupor, I recorded it and sent the video to a few buddies; now it’s popping up on my friends’ Facebook feeds. We’re not tagged—we had scarves over our faces, so you can’t tell it’s us—but my girlfriend is still furious. How can I make amends?
—Blue Streak, Mimico
It’s naïve for anyone indecently exposed in the Instagram era to assume there won’t be a camera phone fixed on them—doubly so if there’s alcohol involved. But if your goal is to make up, don’t tell your girlfriend that. Instead, report the video (if it hasn’t already been removed for breaching Facebook’s terms), then treat her to dinner and take the opportunity to apologize for being a blockhead. If your booze-fuelled belligerence was an isolated incident and not a weekly event, time will repair the rift. Meanwhile, here’s a tip for the next time you want to capture an act of idiocy on video: use Snapchat.
Send your questions to the Urban Diplomat at urbandiplomat@torontolife.com
