So we’re living in the 21st century- you can communicate with others through hundreds of methods, yet with all this technology people are finding it harder than ever to break the virtual boundaries and make real contact! Have our lives become so caught up in the world of blackberry, facebook and twitter that we have actually forgotten to have a REAL conversation? Has hiding behind the screens of our laptops become more important than socialising?
Once upon a time a guy would meet a girl at a party. They would catch each other’s eye, converse in a little friendly conversation and exchange landline numbers. Providing there had been some initial chemistry, it is fairly safe to say that the next day she would receive a phone call inviting her out
For coffee or perhaps dinner. The landline is the crucial part of the equation you see. You must have made quite an impression to make him pick up the phone and call your house, even running the risk of your dad answering! Calling someone’s home phone is a lot more personal than sending a text message or an inbox on facebook.
To most forty something’s this would have always seemed like the normal thing to do but in 2010 to a whole new generation of technology crazed daters this is far from obvious. Why meet so soon when we could engage in text talk for several weeks and maybe even some ‘facebook stalking’ to decide whether he’s worth meeting at all?
We all know that men love the chase, and there are many of us girls that enjoy that period of uncertainty too. For normal few, ‘the chase’ goes as far as not being available for every date and perhaps ‘forgetting’ to return the odd phone call in the early days. Now there’s a whole new rule book. Thanks to the laws of text flirtation you must refrain from putting a kiss at the end of your message or run the risk of looking too keen! Replying straight away is also a no-no and as for over-analysing his messages, this is bound to happen. After all, you’re putting that much thought into what you’re saying to him that surely the message back is full of all sort of hidden meanings? He just said ‘speak to you later.’ That’s it, he mustn’t be keen! When in fact he literally meant what he said! He will talk to you in a little while. So much confusion from so little conversation! If women are from Venus and men are from Mars then we really should keep things as simple as possible...
Having so many ways of communicating with each others also comes with a whole new territory and multitude of problems. Tabloid papers are riddled with kiss and tell stories, most of which involving a footballer, glamour model and pages of saucy texts and photo messages. The most recent scandal being the Vernon Kaye’s text scandal. He is what it seems as a happily married man with a beautiful wife and 2 lovely children, one of which a new born! Their perfect life was shattered when it was revealed that Vernon had been sending a string of saucy texts to glamour model, Rhian Sugden. Not only would this have been a devastating revelation for his wife, Tess, but it must also have been very humiliating!
There's this young footballer I know who regularly attends my events, absolute idiot! He has over 200 girls stored on his phone’s instant chat! When I asked him about how he plays the field with women he said ‘it’s simple really, I speak to girls on facebook and if they’re fit I will add them on my blackberry chat. If I’m bored one night I’ll just message a load of them to see who fancies going out.’ You see, Ben like’s to keep his options open and his mobile allows him to do just that! He told me that even if he was to have a girlfriend he could easily message other girls without getting caught!
It just wasn’t like this 25 years ago, obviously there were affairs and people still cheated but surely not on the scale it is today? Relationships can be challenging even with just the basics and now technology is tearing more apart than ever before…some would argue that it isn’t the fault of technology and that the people who are using it to cheat would do this with or without it’s evil ways. Before, affairs would be something much harder to instigate. You would only be able to meet someone through going out; with no mobile phones you would have limited methods of contact making it extremely difficult! Today men (and women) find it a lot easier to stray!
The internet is full of dating sites, even some specifically targeted at attached people looking for affairs! So now people in relationships are actually joining websites full of others wanting to cheat on their partners. One particular website being ‘discreetadventures.com.’ To my horror the homepage says ‘meet other attached women and men seeking discreet romantic affairs.’ The saddest thing is that people are paying to join these kinds of websites.
Many feel that dating websites and facebook have made them become paranoid about what their other half is getting up to online! Sat having a coffee with my friend Sarah and talking about facebook she turned to me and said ‘You know I have always been a little bit insecure in relationships, but when we (Sarah and her boyfriend Paul of 5 years) got facebook it became worse, I always find myself checking his wall, seeing if any girls have commented on his pictures and just seeing who he’s added! I know it’s ridiculous but I can’t help it!.’
If you can relate to these feelings your probably not alone! There are over 400 million users active on facebook and 35 million of those users are updating their statuses everyday! That’s a lot of people actively interacting online for all sorts of reasons, dating, friendship or simply keeping in touch. Walking past the internet café in the airport, every screen looked rather familiar, you guessed it; everyone was on facebook, typing away and browsing through other people’s photos!
There’s no denying that technology has its advantages. Yes, it does provide people with new ways of finding love and romance and we’ve all heard the odd success stories but it just isn’t realistic for the majority. Judging people solely on their profile pictures seems to be the done thing. Have you never considered that the photo could be several years old, completely airbrushed, or worse still, not the person at all? Even if he looks like prince charming on his photos you may find that after meeting you despise his personality- what an utter waste of time!
So perhaps we should all take it right back to basics. If you’re looking for love, then surfing for it online probably isn’t going to help. Neither is adding that bloke you’ve had your eye on for ages on facebook, and then stalking his page for months in the hope he will message you one day. Getting out there and meeting real people is the key. Generations before us never used a mobile phone or an internet site to find love and neither do you! Wouldn’t it be interesting to meet a man on an evening out, and when asking for number giving him your landline and see if he calls? It’s only then that you will know whether he is serious about getting to know the real you and not simply sending you the odd text message when it suits him.
Mobile phones, instant messengers and internet sites will always exist and will keep advancing with the times. It might not be so realistic to cut these things out of your life but what you can do is change the way you use the technology around you in terms of socialising and dating. Don’t let facebook determine your relationship status and don’t rely on lovematch.com to find your soul mate! People never needed them in the past and you will certainly find more happiness from taking a step back from this virtual whirlwind that has consumed us all!
