Future relationship = virtual relationship?
Had some interesting discussion with Kerm, who is single as well. Questions that are always raised by others, “Aren’t you afraid of being lonely when you are old?”. My answer is usually, “I’ll think about it when the time comes. In the mean time, I’m enjoying singledom”. Which, invites further annoying questions and advises. Kerm’s answer is somehow more interesting, “What will the future internet world look like…with all this connections, am I ever going to be lonely?”. This answer is pretty effective to shut people up.
I joined FaceBook last month and I find myself spending lots of time on it, especially the iThink application. FaceBook is by far the best networking thing (I don’t know the word!) than the others. I meet lots of interesting people from all around the world. I get my information. I joke around, send stuff, express myself in there. The iThink application is my favorite, where I can exchange thoughts, some silly, some serious, with others. I get information about autism from a lady who is married to one. I sent email to a lady who is clinically depressed. I asked where to go for holiday in Vietnam. This is much better than hanging out in the bar!
One of the guy in iThink wrote something interesting: It is funny when people actually set a date and have sex online. The Busy Brain visualize a person, nice dinner, candle light and …. laptop. How funny! But is this where it is going? Are our grandchildren would be hanging out in front of the computer when they say, “I have an appointment” and chat? When I talk to my bosses in the office and tell them to check some work stuff via internet, they said, “Let me kick my kids from their FaceBook”.
Then the words like “Hang Out”, “Dating”, “Have Sex” will have a whole different meaning in the future. Even the word “meeting” is now different: teleconference. Look how convenient it is to hook onto the internet and you meet thousands of people that you can pick to talk to. It is much easier than going to the local pub, park your car, can’t smoke, and pay for drink! It’s more convenient to just turn your computer on, in your shorts, drinking whatever, with your leg up. It is also convenient; usually in a bar, those who gets to have fun are the good looking ones. Through the internet, all you have to be is interesting and smart.
But will this be the future of how relationships are? Communication and information, yes. But relationships? Maybe Kerm is right. You will not feel lonely in the future. With this pace of technology development, the way we live will change. Just imagine before mobile phone or email was available. And look at how the world is now.
I still enjoy holding hands and looking into my partner’s eyes, feeling the touch and all that jazz. Maybe in the future there will be a gadget that allows us to feel all that. We can now visualize the person we are talking to. Maybe later on we can feel the people across the world.
Scary? Nope. It is actually interesting.
January 22, 2008 at 5:04 am
Hey Parvita, I think you might have been reading my mind on this. Actually the past few days I had exactly the same thoughts on the subject (internet, networking, Facebook, iThink, people, culture, relationships, sex). How easy it is actually to meet with and talk to so many interesting people from all ovr the world while you are sitting at your couch, in pijamas, sipping your drink. No need to have fancy clothes or make up on. From a point of view this can be both liberating and therapeutic. We can be ourselves without the impossed by media and society “image psychosis”. Plus we can work out the aspects of our personality that we consider as weak. From the other side sometimes it feels, well, unreal and lonely. For me, right now, to be real equals to touch and your laptot is rather cold, don’t you think? But I agree, it should not be scary … maybe a brand new continent ready to be explored! For nowadays kids it is much more easy, as they grow up in this new universe and take it from granded. It is us adults who are a little bit confused or/and scared.
By the way, thanks for sharing your busy brain with us, your blog is real food for thought!
January 22, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I wrote about virtual friendships last September (click here to read more). My posting resulted in someone (think I mentioned this) who was writing an assignment, titled Do Social Websites Enhance Personal Relationships? to use my posting as his/her footnotes.
To me personally, social networking websites can help me (in this particular order) locate old friends (I’ve meet a long lost best friend in primary school in friendster), to maintain communications with friends who live far apart, and to find new friends. Mind you, if only collecting virtual friends, it’s so easy to do. Just poke, send them messages, and bam! you’ve got new (virtual) friends. But to have real friends, well, it takes a lot more than just emailing & messaging. It takes time and effort from both sides (for example, when I sent SMS saying goodbye to my friends before I left Indonesia, all sent sweet goodbye notes, said that they’re gonna miss me bla-bla-bla; but in reality, not all would like to put effort to meet in in person due tovarious reasons. See how easy it is to be nice virtually?)
That’s exactly my point about relationships. We might chat, (pretend) we’re holding hands, kissing, even having sex, etc. all virtually, but in reality, we don’t know whether s/he is stroking her pets or answering his/her mum queries or doing it without feeling it, or even worse, having real partner who doesn’t know what we’re doing in front of computer. And plus that goes back to the real human being necessity: to be close to someone, the need of physical contacts. That’s why people create the illusion of ‘walking’ ‘eating’, ‘kissing’, etc, because we all need it. We need contacts with other people. Our other senses scream when only our eyes got fed.
Some of my friends always say I’m skeptical on this (potential) relationship through virtual world. Maybe I am. But I don’t say virtual relationship is doom. My cousin met his wife through internet, but he had to fly 16 hours from Berlin to Jakarta to meet her in person, more than once. But I’ve heard sad stories more than happy ending ones.
So I guess to me social networking websites are just tools to maintain existing relationships. Or doors that open to other possibilities. But to replace face-to-face relationships, never. Because when ‘having sex’, I want to see and feel him, not touching cold keyboards and see his face through webcam!!
January 22, 2008 at 2:16 pm
On the lighter side: with the frequent ups and downs of Indonesian electricity (and thus Internet connection), how can you maintain a virtual relationship? You may not feel lonely whilst chatting with virtual boyfriend/girlfriend, romanticizing whatever. Then suddenly, some dumb kid would play his kite through the electric pole and wham.. no electricity, no Internet. There goes your relationship… you’re stuck in your home, alone in the dark, only with your drink at hand. Humans aren’t robots, I think it’s crazy to substitue personal relationship with a virtual one. I’d still need the other person’s presence, if we are talking I want to be able to look at my parner in the eyes. With the advances of technology, people might date computers any day now! Perhaps the other end who are typing romantic words isn’t even human.. ughhh, scary thought.
January 22, 2008 at 2:49 pm
@Anita & Mia: romantic virtual relationship is a bit difficult to imagine (the up and down of the FastNet really annoys me these days because it restrict me communicating with my beau at the moment!). Replacing hanging out in the bars with a laptop, I don’t mind. Virtual friends can be good friends that can add our quality, which someday we might meet (remember pen friends?). They exist, they are real.
Besides, I don’t know how much romance I need when I turn 50. It is all variables that needs to be calculated in the math. (Gosh, My Busy Brain is not working properly due to insomnia that hit last night). But I doubt that we will be lonely in the future, especially the singles. The whole concept of relationship will change with the evolution of technology.
Hey, Gals, why does relationship have to be romantic? There are all sort of kinds of relationship, you know.
I’m chatting with my Operation Geologist who is at offshore in the middle of the Makassar Strait at the moment. Isn’t this great.
Need some input from guys, I think. Single guys.
January 22, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Parvita, never say that relationship (with opposite sex) has to be romantic. Most of my best, longest friends are guys. I went to Saigon with 8 guys and no other ladies and we had a blast. That’s why I mentioned friendship too, much longer than relationship. But your posting talked more about romance in virtual world (was it not?).
I put faith more in virtual friendship than virtual romance relationship, that’s all I’m saying.
January 22, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Did I talk about romance in my article? Maybe touched a bit but mostly on general relationship, on networking. Still prefer to see my partner’s eyes, did mention that. SOOC (Slightly Out Of Context), I agree with you although my best friends are still diamonds and girlfriends (had enough with men at work already) LOL :))
Your last statement is pretty valid and I agree, for this moment. Because, like I said, it’s not only technology that evolves, I evolve as well. The way I am right now will change and I don’t know how my views will be regarding my romantic life the next 20 years. Yes, I’m not a romantic person and I get complaints about it…:))
January 23, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I’m in between for this subject, I am skeptical about virtual romance but I have 2 good friends whose met their husband thru net and they happily married now.
On the friendship side, yes this net is virtually real, why? Because this medium lead me to you and to my other blog sphere friends, and I can say that they are real because I know what they’re look like (only whose put their real photos), I know their thought and sometimes you can get big picture of that person by understanding their thoughts, no need to encounter in person.
And I do agree of the socializing sites like Friendster, Facebook, Myspace, Multiply, HI5, Twitter and etc can broaden your world, but it’s up to us whether we want to make it real in reality or just virtually real.
But I really look forward of the evolution of this technology.
January 28, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Hi. People are social - they are happiest with other people close to them. Look for recent research about “happiness” on net. Not everyone is as unique as they consider themselves to be, so chances are that 90% of us fall into the category of having this prime social need. The net is a great way of meeting people. Social networking sites perform a really valuable service, in that respect. Not everyone wants to hang out in bars meeting other people and some might believe that they are unlikely to meet the sort of people in bars that they want to meet.
Given the variety of people on this planet, it is completely valid for these sites to be used for as many purposes as there are people. Some of those purposes are predatory and anti-social. Some may want to reduce the ordinariness of there lives by inventing a false persona. Some are seeking real friendship including meeting, some to avoid real friendship by having someone to speak too, without meeting. It depends how one defines “friend”. To me, many people call others “friends”, that I might call “acquantances”.
We were all brought up in times that friendship required personal presence, even though we maybe also had penfriends, who were known by that name not “friends”. Can we turn our backs on our experiences? Not usually. Usually our first 10 years or so make a pretty firm imprint on our thinking, even at a subconscious level.
Does any one remember the CB radio fad in the US in the 1970’s maybe? Friends were made via “Breaker, breaker, good buddy….”. Maybe some real friendships and marriages were formed that survived - I am sure some did. But in the end, the majority of CB friendships passed with the passing of the fad.
So use the net to feel less lonely - nothing wrong with that. But probably best to understand that it is a substitution for something more personal and valuable. With the presence of the “real thing”, there would probably be less time or reason to use valuable time chatting with “netfriends”. I suspect that, if a couple formed, but one of the couple continued to be net chatty, then the other would ask why that person preferred the net to their company. Especially if they met on the net. After all, the net is a great way to meet other people isnt it?
Summary - use what works for your purpose. But be careful that you study and understand your needs, or else you will be disappointed, sooner or later.