Rohin Guha

Have you heard that kissing allows an exchange of about 80 million germs between two people? It is strange that, as humans, we can casually exchange 80 million germs, and then attempt to cancel that transaction out with three simple words. “Let’s be friends.”

I have been thinking a lot about the way we wield words—and the way we wield words when we are threatened or feel defensive, when we feel someone has hurt, offended, or upset us. I have been trying to pinpoint the emotional wells that make us tap into abrasive language that we may otherwise skip.

On Independence Day in 2011, I was down in Austin visiting a college friend; only recently has he come clean with me saying that he noticed that New York had transformed me, it had sharpened me — perhaps too well.