Dating in the Time of Technology

Telephony vs Telepathy

This past weekend I retreated to my home away from home in the North Fork of Long Island. In a simple town, my friends escape from the city each summer to our friend Lance's country home on an inlet of the Peconic Bay.

The air fresh, the sea salt water cool, the birds and cicadas provide the chorus for our afternoon kayak through creeks surrounded by beaches. We make a special connection with friends while interacting with nature. The different pace of country living is the perfect refuge; a setting that might be the ideal place to take a date, not only for its natural luxuries and stunning scenery, but for an escape from everyday technology. There is no need to bring your cell phone on this date. Leave your city habits behind, the furious under-the-table texting and those "excuse me a second, I have to take this" moments. You might even consider turning your phone off while you're out all day basking in the sun.

My generation grew up with computers, we keep in touch with instant messaging, and readily update our activities via the likes of Myspace, Facebook or Twitter. We share information using hand held devices to text, receive emails and connect to wireless networks for Internet. We have a new set of commands to denote the textual portrayal of a writer's mood by various facial expressions. Emoticons are embedded in the text messages of the virtually expressive, replacing the tone that voice carries in telephone conversations. From our cell phones we can now mirco-blog to a social network - Twitter, often times leaving our messages for the World Wide Web to read. That is if your page is not censored as private for only your friends to see. When posted publicly, there is a revelation of one's thought or what they choose to share but unless someone responds, likely someone you know, sometimes there is question to whom you are actually sharing with. How do the responses or messages left for you online differ from those that you receive when you speak to someone face-to-face? We are so very connected with technology - and though it appears a blessing in some respects, it seems to irk some and especially the older generation.

What happened to making plans on the phone? Lance recalls the advent of home message machines as a godsend; it utilized tapes to record messages when you were not home. Before that one would have to wait by the phone for important calls. Nowadays, there are so many ways to keep in touch and make oneself accessible from a distance. But some argue that this is not necessarily a good thing. On the invitation Lance sent out at the beginning of the summer he wrote, There is wireless Internet for working and staying in touch, but Facebook does not work out here. Stop and smell the roses, is what he would say.

How many times have you interrupted your face-to-face conversation with a friend to respond to the sound indicating the new message delivered to your Blackberry? As we drove back to the city, another friend chimed in saying he finds it such a turn off when the woman he's out with is always checking her cell phone. If we have made the effort to go out, we are hoping to like each other and so we have, say, two hours on this first date to get to know each other. You have to be aware of the impression you are making when you are text messaging and updating your status - all along missing out on the time you have with the guy who is actually with you in the flesh.

It's perceived as plain rude to many, to be in another's company with your ringer on high or your attention diverted every time you are alerted to something else vying for your attention. How can a relationship be fostered when there are so many other distractions? this friend asks, There seems an inclination to do other things, to weigh other options which makes it hard to focus on the person in front of you. With all these modes of communication come other connections and possibilities- other possible dates perhaps? The pool seems to have been diluted and so he begs the question, Is this why our generation isn't getting married as young as we used to?

Arriving downtown Sunday evening at Golden Bridge Yoga on Centre St., we had a plan to join a group of Kundalini enthusiasts for a three-hour class taught by the master Guru Singh. During his opening address, he touched on the very conversation we just had in the car. Guru Singh reminded us with an analogy the message that long before telephony - equipment to provide voice communication over distance, was telepathy - the transfer of information on thoughts or feelings between individuals. Though technological advances have certainly proven convenient, they should not act as a substitute for meaningful human connection - that some of us so very long for. Consider putting your phone on silent and live in the moment of what surrounds you. In relationships, instead of looking to the next thing, consider that what you want could be right in front of you.

By Katia Tallarico

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Katia Tallarico, Relationships 2.0
		About the author:
		Katia Aurora Tallarico, born and raised in Toronto, currently lives in Manhattan. As an undergraduate at McGill University, she lived in Montreal where she studied Psychology and later pursued a graduate degree in Counseling Psychology at Columbia University in New York City. Katia integrates both Western and Eastern approaches to her mental health practice and credits her own well-being to a dedicated meditation and yoga practice. She has worked servicing chronically mentally ill adults in lower Manhattan and currently works as a Mental Health Counselor with foster children in the South Bronx. In addition, Katia is an active supporter and Young Benefactor Committee member of Free Arts NYC (www.freeartsnyc.org).
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