Deceit, Lies and Facebook January 27, 2009

The purpose of staging a sham wedding was, surprisingly for some, not deception. The St. Petersburg tradition of a newly-wed couple touring famous monuments and drinking several bottles of champagne along the way is all too evident upon walking through the centre of the city (on a Saturday afternoon I once counted 18 brides in my field of vision). We thought this looked like fun and so decided to have our own ‘wedding’. We went to a flea market and bought a second-hand dress for about £30 with hideous puffy sleeves and netting I wouldn’t even use as curtains. Most of the morning was spent applying layers of make-up to my bride to make her appear as Russian as possible.

We started off on the traditional way, where the groom must perform a series of tasks (in this case an Irish jig, an arm-wrestling match and a Times2 crossword). Other than this, the day was perfectly unplanned; the embellishments of the trumpet serenade, having our photos taken with Peter the Great and the carriage ride around palace square were opportunities seized upon on arrival at the various sights. We felt entirely unconvincing, but the frankly tasteless clothes worn by the bride and the rest of the wedding party appeared to create the desired aesthetic as people began to congratulate me and my ‘wife’.

After a day’s sight-seeing we did what any good tourist of my generation does and uploaded the photographs to facebook. I hadn’t thought any of my friends could believe this. For a start, I’m not attracted to women. At all. My bride looked terrible - i.e. like a Russian bride. There were no photos of a reception or documents being signed. Furthermore, my facebook ‘info’ section never changed from ‘male, interested in: men’. The idea that changing my facebook relationship status means anything is laughable for somebody that still talks to people and goes to the checkout rather than using the self service machines at Tesco.

In other words, if I had attempted to hoax a wedding, I would have tried a little harder. What is difficult to justify is how people who ‘know’ me believed simply from browsing my photographs that I had decided to change my sexuality and get married (I certainly wouldn’t have been trying for Russian citizenship). I have concluded that people in general dislike reason; they prefer to judge from what they see, rather than ask questions. This is the foundation of superstition, religion and politics. In fact, it brings a Christian parable to mind – the one where the blind men are all standing around feeling different parts of a camel, one holding its tail claiming it is a rope etc. But aaaaah, says Jesus, look at the whole thing and you will see. A little rude of him perhaps. Or the artist Piero Manzoni who sold cans of his own poo, which turned out to be a lie. They were being sold for so much money (one was sold to the Tate for over £20,000) that nobody dared to look inside for over forty years and find out that they were filled with plaster. The point is, appearances can be deceptive and it’s easy to fool people, even unintentionally. People like to believe, but STOP I say, ruin the illusion; run through the streets and tell your friends, that neither God, nor camels, nor wrestling is real!