It is amusing to note how often we lean on metaphors to reach out to people known and unknown. Such is the human condition that 'the connection' is deemed to be of a greater importance than what it actually connects to. You could be talking about apples, I could be talking about oranges, but as long as both you and I are convinced that we are talking about round fruits that taste nice we could start embracing each other by using “like” and its variants as a rule in every spoken sentence.
We can build personal connections, we can build an entire civilization on such things. An embrace, a handshake or any other gesture is often nothing beyond a metaphor. A metaphor for warmth, friendliness and any other value we have deemed that it holds. If there were to be a raid on the human subconscious and should the aliens take away our metaphorical glands, what would remain of us in this little world of ours?
Will it herald a world of unique moments, unattached and individual? Would we still seek and reach out to one another if there is no “like” to hold on to to? If your apple and my orange are different from the outset, will we still continue to talk about fruits? Is what we call “identity” nothing but a sheer lack of it and a deference to the collective?