After electronically dating for over a year, the Date Doctor is finally e-fficial. Yes, that’s right- my facebook profile name had that glorious little violet heart next to it yesterday proclaiming my “changed relationship status” to thousands of our “friends.”
As me and my new o.o.a (oh that stands for object of affection in cyberspace for those of you who actually have real lives) giddily “confirmed” each others’ existence we simultaneously had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Our phones alternating dings and buzzes (notifications that people were commenting on our changed relationship status) served as an electronic chorus reinforcing our decision to go public.
Yet it seems that as our technological prowess increases, our relational longevity dissolves. Why go over to a friend’s house for a cup of coffee and a laugh when you can text them the funny thing that happened today and get a “LOL” in return? Afterall, that leaves two hours open to blog, check email, instant message, update your facebook status, and tweet that you are updating your facebook status.
In today’s electronic age, it seems that a “confirmed relationship” is the new engagement, and facebook is the new page six. Interestingly enough, immediately after updating and e-validating each others’ existence to our friends and family- Facebook’s inability to just be in the present moment reared its ugly head and starting showing us ads for engagement rings (which my boyfriend quickly “reported” as “offensive”…lol).
Ironically, after online dating for years and going on over one hundred dates with guys I met through sites like match.com and eHarmony- I met the one I finally settled down with at a kickball tourney known as T in A (Thanksgiving in April folks…get your minds out of the gutter).
There was no friend requesting, then rifling through his family photos, blogs, websites, witty posts and then deciding if he would be an e-fit- I simply watched him interact in real time, with real people, and felt something….real?
I have to say- there is a different quality to the people you meet organically vs. the ones who are trolling the halls of cyberspace. It’s something akin to comparing mom’s homemade dumplings to KFC’s over-branded, bland, and manufactured homogenous lumps of dough (as a side note, my mother still refers to facebook as “that spacebook,” or my personal favorite “myface” ).
For instance, the men I dated online did not ever seem to have many friends or relationships that subsisted longer than a few months. The one whom I e-claimed my affection for yesterday, has three different clusters of friends who call him on a daily basis and bid for his time. He has maintained these friendships for years.
The men I found in cyberspace seemed to carry out a monotonous existence of working 9-5, followed by overpriced dinner and martinis at the latest and greatest Hollywood place to see and be seen. This one actually had a life that was steeped in meaningful interpersonal activities such as softball leagues, game nights, and weekly mentoring as a Big Brother.
It is not to say that those online are completely vapid and lacking of any real moral fabric (if you recall- it wasn’t too long ago that yours truly was one of those poor lost e-souls). Yet, I do believe that the more we get entangled in this electronic web, we start to lose a quality to ourselves as humans, which can dilute the quality of our future romantic endeavors.
We forget how to have a meaningful conversation or what it feels like to actually laugh out loud (lol). We become anxious during (GASP!) the silent dead-space that is non-existent during e-conversations where we can wait until we have a fully developed witty comment to shoot back. As a result, we lose our quick wit as well as our sense of vulnerability…all the things that make us respectively extraordinary and real in the first place….but that’s just IMO (in my opinion), FWIW (for what it’s worth).
