Romantic Graffiti
Oh to be young and in love! The roses, the letters, the cans of spray paint defacing property in the night…
Yes, romantic graffiti is an Almaty fixture. "I love you!" is of course the most frequent sentiment, and surprisingly often in English (perhaps it has more punch when in an exotic tongue, but then, why not French?) The most artistic will add a heart or a rose and have a wider set of colors, and the most poetic will add some qualifying statement: "You're the only one I love," "I breathe you," "I cannot live without you," "You're my everything." And then there are the desperate pleas for forgiveness, because nothing says "Take me back!" like your name left on a public surface without your desire.
Though I support graffiti when it is original and well-executed, romantic graffiti just strikes me as immature. Yet an informal survey of local girls suggests that it is a well-respected path to the heart. The most common response: "I wish somebody would do something like that for me!" The fact that they had all seen such graffiti creates an expectation, and when love-struck boyfriends are looking to inject some novelty into their relationship, they have a model to follow. There's a viral nature to the phenomenon - once enough lovers know about romantic graffiti as a form of expression, it becomes a ready item in the arsenal of courtship. Letters are so passé anyways.
Yes, romantic graffiti is an Almaty fixture. "I love you!" is of course the most frequent sentiment, and surprisingly often in English (perhaps it has more punch when in an exotic tongue, but then, why not French?) The most artistic will add a heart or a rose and have a wider set of colors, and the most poetic will add some qualifying statement: "You're the only one I love," "I breathe you," "I cannot live without you," "You're my everything." And then there are the desperate pleas for forgiveness, because nothing says "Take me back!" like your name left on a public surface without your desire.
Though I support graffiti when it is original and well-executed, romantic graffiti just strikes me as immature. Yet an informal survey of local girls suggests that it is a well-respected path to the heart. The most common response: "I wish somebody would do something like that for me!" The fact that they had all seen such graffiti creates an expectation, and when love-struck boyfriends are looking to inject some novelty into their relationship, they have a model to follow. There's a viral nature to the phenomenon - once enough lovers know about romantic graffiti as a form of expression, it becomes a ready item in the arsenal of courtship. Letters are so passé anyways.
