By Parijat Jha
As I walked down the hallway, I saw my friend and prepared to shake his hand, but instead of the traditional greeting, he winked. I was shaken to the core; in my eyes a wink is a creepy gesture made only for negative intentions. Although he did not have any distasteful desires, he still freaked me out. This made me wonder-—Why the wink?
The main problem with winking is the difficulty in discerning what the winker’s intentions are with the wink. Are we sharing a secret? Are you expressing romantic interest? Are you just saying hi?
What makes matters worse is that anyone can wink from friends and family, to coaches and teachers, and even random strangers—I have witnessed winks from all of them. Although many people may use the wink, the gesture always seems creepy. This is caused by the one time you meet eye-to-eye with a random stranger, and instead of a friendly greeting you receive an all too promiscuous wink. From then on, every time you see a wink, you think of that unfortunate event.
For those of you winkers out there, you should know that you are sending an unintended message. My Glee teacher once winked at our class after a performance, and we all looked at each other in confusion. As always, we all were left wondering: Why not applaud or even give a head nod? Why the wink?
My problem is caused mainly by the lack of a definite definition for a wink. I’ve had coaches who when I do something well, and I’ve had people wink at me when they’re playing a joke on me. And to all the ladies, I’ll warn you now: It’s just creepy.
What scares me even more is that if so many people are winking, does that mean they all have some sort of distasteful thought going on in their head that they can only express with a wink? That’s a scary and disturbing thought.
To stop this troubling disaster that is a wink, many paths can be taken. For example a global definition could be created. The world definition of wink could be a gesture made when wooing a person. Another route that could be taken would be to eliminate a wink all together and avoid the confusion. Either way, action must be taken so this winking epidemic stops.
Each individual can do his own part to help control this fiasco. The best way is next time you suffer from being winked at, bring up the question, Why the wink?