So I’m reading this book which is set in like the 1100’s (safe to say that in THOSE days, today’s snail mail would be what instant messaging is to us today) and among a lot of other stuff – power, greed, REVENGE!!!The rise of the clergy, and church building – it traces the story of a boy and a girl.
Now this follows the classic pattern of a penniless bastard boy raised in the woods by his (rumoured to be witch) mother falling in love with girl from a noble family – girl pays no attention to bastard boy. Eventually, girl’s family suffers misfortune, she has no title or money to her name and they both are now suddenly on equal footing – OH and by the way the girl is 5 years older that the guy. Years go by and the young awkward looking bastard grows into a lovely intelligent young man who challenges this girl mentally in a way which no other dude has managed to do (they’re all concerned with her bodaaaaaay and how she would be a prize to dangle on their arm etc.)
LONG STORY SHORT (and it is a freaking long story) these two finally hook up one night and then she marries some other dude the next day because of some vow she made to her dying father. The bastard boy is heartbroken that she cannot forget about the vow made to her father and leaves the town – heading towards Spain to find out more about his biological father. 9 months later, she gives birth to a kid who resembles the bastard boy and NOT the dude she married out of a sense of duty and he is like “this marriage is a sham kthnxbye.”
She is all like yay am free from the stupid duty marriage and I have this beautiful baby boy who reminds me of the man I truly love… BUT WHERE IS THAT MAN? AND THEN SHE EMBARKS UPON A JOURNEY TO TRACK HIM DOWN.
The story is based in ENGLAND in the 1100’s!!! And according to the book, it takes her SIX MONTHS to make her way to Spain asking people whether they’ve seen an Englishman of his description and working on clue people she speaks to give her. LIKE. CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE? I cannot. I GET LOST IN GURGAON WHILE USING GOOGLE MAPS. Ultimately, she gets to Spain only to find out he left a month early to go to France.
She then goes to PARIS and they are FINALLY reunited in a cathedral that bastard boy is checking out (oh yeah he is obsessed with cathedrals and their architecture and he’s like a brilliant sculptor)
LIKE. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
While reading this I was like wow, imagine if this situation had taken place in today’s day and age. The Internet would have made everyone’s life so much easier – Boy sees girl, boy wonders who girl is, uses Facebook to find her by going through the friends’ lists of people he saw her talking to. If she’s semi famous (which she is because she is an Earls’ daughter), probably even Google her name – find out everything he can find out about her online – element of mystery – ELIMINATED.
Instead of physically stalking her, he resorts to online stalking her, seeing the photographs she’s tagged in etc. Instead of furtively trying to steal looks at her face whenever she is in front of him, he stares at photographs of her face online (unless her privacy settings are SOLID and he’s not friends with her yet)
Eventually, adds her as a friend, and piques her interest by sharing interesting links with her, chatting with her and also commenting on stuff she posts.
Lots of mutual “liking” of posts and online chatting later, they hang out, he is infuriated to discover her “relationship status” change to “engaged” and goes to ask her in person wtf is happening. They end up talking/baring souls like never before and end up hooking up. When he tries to talk her out of the engagement, she explains to him that she is duty bound to marry some other dude.
He loses shit and leaves the city. She gets married is unhappy for nine months until baby is born (while stalking him and seeing what he is upto on social media )and marriage is called a sham and then goes after him.
This is where shit would get simpler for her. Instead of asking random strangers whether they saw a person of his description and trying to guesstimate which routes he took, she would just check out his instagram account/ check-ins on facebook/ tweets/ tagged photographs.
She could also just write a status and tag him being like “yo I was an ass and was an idiot for 9 months can we give us a second try? I love you! P.S YOU’RE A DAD! ” or she could just upload a photograph of her baby who bears a really strong resemblance to him and caption it “Just like his daddy” @bastardboy hahahahaha (I am horrible)
END OF STORY. But then, i wouldn’t have a book to read … I would have a paragraph.
Of course all this is supposing the boy was not one of those, I AM AN ARTISTE’ I DO NOT USE SOCIAL MEDIA… then you could always be like this lady and just make a bunch of posters and put them up (with your phone number) at places you know he would frequent.. (photographs were taken in 2010 when I was in London. I wonder if she ever found Arnaud…I also wonder what she did for her to be apologizing so profusely…)
