What do “socially imposed judgments” and “Keyboard, face, keyboard, face.” mean?

Question

In the wake of successive sexual scandals of IMF Chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Congressman, Anthony Weiner, I learned that there’s no shortage of euphemisms for expressing love (or sexual) affairs in modern English such as tangoing, one night stand, Okay fluke planetary alignment, etc. from recent newspapers.

However, I don’t understand (1) what the word, “socially imposed judgments,” in the sentence of Carolyn Hax’s column of Washington Post’s Lifestyle section (June 6 issue), though I think I can guess it roughly. Also I have no idea about (2) what “Keyboard, face, keyboard, face,” means. Can someone clarify the meanings of these two phrases in the following sentence?

Hi, Carolyn.

Do you have any advice on how two people who really hit it off after a mutual friend’s birthday party might see past their own hang-ups and begin dating each other with open minds? We’ve both got some socially imposed judgments about how easy it was for the other person to jump into bed right away .

One-night stand to relationship? [This is how the asker signed her question.]

Here begins Carolyn Hax's reply:

Keyboard, face, keyboard, face.

How about: “Why don’t we go out to see if we actually like each other?”

Unless you don’t feel as if you can do the asking?

Edited to add more context by Robusto

Answer 1

"Socially imposed judgments" simply means the expectations of society: what is required to be in compliance with social mores and customs. As for the other, I think it simply suggests nervous, embarrassed glances down at the keyboard and back to the other person's face.

Edit, now that I've added context to the quote in the question above

The bold-face line "One night stand to relationship?" is how the questioner signed herself, or how the columnist signed her (probably the former). People who write in to advice columnists use funny names or phrases to sign themselves, because they obviously don't want to reveal their real names.

Now, getting on with the rest, the columnist is actually dealing with the original asker, someone who commented on the exchange, and then the original asker again. There are three segments to the exchange. So what the original asker wants to know is if it's all right to begin dating this guy after she had a one-night stand with him — if she can overcome the judgment of the community, etc. In other words, she wants to know if doing something deemed socially unacceptable in her circle permanently invalidates any chance of her having a legitimate relationship with that man.

Now it becomes clear that the "keyboard, desk, keyboard, desk" does in fact mean that the columnist is flabbergasted at such a silly bit of prudery, especially as an afterthought.

Answer 2

"Keyboard, Face, Keyboard, Face" sounds to me like an expression of frustration, as in the person is hitting their head on the keyboard, similar to how one might say they're hitting their head against the wall.

Answer 3

Robusto is correct about what "socially imposed judgments" are. However, he's mistaken about "keyboard, face, keyboard, face"; that indicates someone repeatedly smashing their face into their keyboard. It's similar to the expression *headdesk*.

The basic motivation to do such a thing is so that the physical pain will overwhelm and distract from the psychological pain caused by the social situation one is experiencing.

The semantic content of communicating to someone that one is so doing (almost always untruthfully, thanks be) is identical to that of the classic New Jerseyism "Yer killin' me".