Technology has changed the art of dating. Once upon a time, dating was a lot simpler than it seems to be now.
I pine for my grade school days when my hair was tugged and I was pushed down on the playground. I could understand that. But now, with the advent of caller ID, e-mail, instant messaging and cell phones (especially text messaging), everyone is plugged in and easily accessible…often a little too accessible.
For example, while I was bored today, I Googled my ex.
He turned up. Over 400 hits turned up. Probably 5-10% of those are him. But it wrenched my heart. Twisted and turned those muscles into convulsions. Curiosity was getting the best of me, making me do things that the logical side of my brain forbids; things that my heart cannot tolerate.
So I followed one of the links and it took me to his online photo album. I went to click on one of the pictures, woke up from my stupor and closed out the window before I saw the picture. It is bad enough that I have a collection of pictures where he looks handsome and I look happy – but I don’t have to see him looking happy without me, after me.
Because of the instant connectivity provided by technology, there is a gross soap scum of my dating history encircling the sink of my life. I wish it was as simple as taking a scrub brush and scouring the dirt away, but it’s a 409-resistant kind of scum. That is to say, technology allows for my exes, my baggage to be too accessible and have too much accessibility to me.
Before I had a cell phone, I didn’t drunk dial or text anyone (mainly because who can remember telephone numbers after too many shots of Jameson at 3 in the morning?). Before the World Wide Web, I could burn or tear up pictures of my exes and that’d be that: there was a good chance I’d never have to see him again. Before instant messaging, people acted with more propriety; but talking to a faceless person around the corner, in another state or country via lines of text, makes it a lot easier to ask indecent, absurd or ultra-personal questions.
I would need at least two hands to count the myriad of bizarre happenings due to technology in the dating world I have personally encountered in the last year.
For example, on multiple occasions by multiple gentleman suitors, I have been asked out on a first date via text messages and e-mails. Of course, I had to politely refuse and insist that his lazy ass call me up and ask me out.
Last summer, I was at a wedding where, while at the altar, the pastor graciously thanked the impersonal art of e-mailing and instant messaging for reigniting the bride and groom’s flame. Call me old fashion, but I don’t usually expect to hear a Man of God talk about IM-ing. It was a strange juxtaposition of tradition and technology.
Now in this instance, I am sure the bride and the groom are thanking goodness for technology being such an easy medium in which to ask the difficult questions that sometimes need asking in a relationship. It is, after all, what brought them back together so they could say their “I do”s. And like the ying and the yang, the man and the woman, the ups and the downs, there will continue to be both positives and negatives of technology in the world of dating.
I suppose I am not in a position yet to judge the effects in my life just yet because I have experienced (first- or second-handedly) both sides. All in all, perhaps it is inevitable that technology will scum up my life more frequently and that I will have to develop a stain-resistant coat to the scum. Until then, I am going to avoid typing “Former Love of my Life” in Google’s search engine.
• "A Single Serving" appears the 1st and 15th of every month, exclusively in Lumino Magazine. E-mail Melissa at m.koss@yahoo.com.
