Roughly a lifetime ago I was dating Some Jerk who broke up with me via sms. For a while there he was nicknamed Some Jerk because one, he had grossly misused technology and two, I forgot his name, given that he broke it off with me before I had the chance to learn it.
Like Some Jerk, we seem to use technology for everything these days – we shop online, bank online and chat online, and yes, we even date, make up and break up online.
Facebook is my cyber cocaine. I can’t get enough of it. At first it was just a convenient way to keep in touch with friends in Europe, but now it’s taken a life of its own and after adding an application that tells you how addicted you are to Facebook, at 44% I’m prepared to admit I might need help.
The great thing about Facebook is that everyone is on it, and if they’re not, they probably don’t exist (or at least not in the way that matters). Thus, it should be no surprise, that for a little while I entertained fantasies about someone who poked me. We’ve never met because he lives on the other side of the country, but that’s beyond the point because after viewing his profile (a template created to snapshot your life as you know it), I decided it was a perfectly good idea to plan a meeting and the only people who thought this was a bad idea was everyone I knew.
Here’s why I can discuss this so openly. I’m in my late twenties now. I’m comfortable with my career, I’ve got a project to play with and fill my time (buying things for my apartment), I have a great circle of friends and I’ve traveled the world. Really dating is the final frontier for me. It’s the only area of life that I don’t seem to have a handle, so I’m prepared to go on a facebook-inspired adventure and hope it leads somewhere good.
The few weeks I spent chatting with my romance across Australia were probably the healthiest dating experience I’ve had in a while – yes, that’s how bad my dating experiences have been lately.
I went to a seminar lately where an enlightened monk told us that the world was changing and that we had to change with it while remaining perfectly still. I’m yet to come face-to-face with my own private Nirvana, so I’m not entirely sure what he meant, but I have a feeling he was talking about listening to the universe for opportunities and not being disappointed too much when things don’t work out as we planned.
Needless to say my cross country romance will probably not work out – distance is a bitch, after all. I think the great thing about global warming is that as sea levels continue to rise land masses become smaller and in Australia we’ll all soon be living in the centre of the Continent. So everyone please keep using aerosol spray cans, pump your air conditioning and drive cars that destroy the planet. And maybe soon enough I’ll be able to get a little closer geographically to my Facebook Guy.
—
Care to confess your own cyber-addiction? Email brett@www.outinperth.com.
