DIGITAL LOVE

At the crack-of-dawn as I was walking along ring road towards the office, I bumped  into an old friend. Amidst our little tête-à-tête conversation she told me that she was happily married and asked whether I was married too, My answer was no. She further went ahead to ask me whether I was dating or maybe in a relationship, not knowing where the conversation was leading I became hesitant. I finally answered in the affirmative. She stared at me for five seconds, shrugged and replied “Mmmh, Modern love is tough…anyway am happy for you” and quickly changed the topic. I have been thinking about that statement for a while now and finally I tend to agree with her.

Contemporary love is indeed tough. In the modern world,   Mr. Right has been replaced with Mr. ‘Right Now’. I am not being pessimistic; it is the reality of life. “Seize the day, live the moment, relish in the ‘Now’”  has become our modus operendi.

The world has changed. In the olden days, Love used to mean romance: poetry, roses, candle lit dinners and going to the movies. Boys begged common friends for their phone numbers, wrote one ten page letters with cute cartoons drawn in the margins and composed songs for them. Today, handwritten long love letters have been replaced by single character emoticons.

In the Nineties, people fell in love and song libretto made sense i.e the likes of savage garden:

“I'll be your dream
I'll be your wish I'll be your fantasy
I'll be your hope I'll be your love
Be everything that you need
I'll love you more with every breath
Truly, madly, deeply do
I will be strong I will be faithful
'cause I'm counting on
A new beginning
A reason for living
A deeper meaning, yeah”

But when I listen to the songs sang today I feel like hitting my head on the wall,  think Eminem and Rihanna singing ‘Love the way you lie’:

“Just gonna stand there and watch me burn,
But that's alright because I like the way it hurts.
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry,
But that's alright because I love the way you lie…
I love the way you lie”

Seriously, you love the way he lies? Are you OK?

Welcome to the free fall of digital, modern, present-day or otherwise contemporary love; it is breathless, relentless and unapologetic.  One falls  in love and out, breaks a heart, have her heart broken, dump, get dumped, have a fling, cheat, experiment, maintain ‘friends with benefits…yeah! Call it digital love, it is fast, it is ruthless, it has no limits. Speed dating powered by technology is the best description I can give it.

Relationships on steroids. One meets another on facebook, she google's him. He is hot she decides and inboxes him her number.  A little Facebook stalking then Whatsapp through the night, then dates are set via SMS. There goes the enigma, but not the drama. By date two, she is half way through a relationship. Texting, sexting, booty calls. Love and lust, inextricably entwined until it is over. Until she is at a party again exchanging Whatsapp contacts and twitter addresses. Again! Here we go. Again! The other relationship didn’t even last 3 weeks and immediately after the breakup she wants to enter into a relationship with someone she just met at a party that night for the first time!!!! What is that? You call it love at first sight? Ooh Please spare me that crap, you must be kidding me. It is like the end of a really good sad movie, then you eject and insert a  new disc. But hey, this is not a Celine Dion song, they seem so naive today. Romance instagrammed: Charming, interesting and/or balmy but far from real. 

Love today is very intricate, an information overload, never-ending connectivity, inevitable uncertainty… I die!!! But in my humble opinion it is still love, and it is still real. And I further submit that perhaps, it is more resilient. Because ironically, in this age of high-tempo relationships, people are more understanding than ever before.

After all, we have all ‘been there’ and we know what it is like to be heartbroken, to cheat, To fall in love truly, madly, and deeply and even to fall out of love.

So after reading this you have become more cynical? Desired effect, it is called growing up. If you have had another bad relationship that is fine because it will make you appreciate the good ones. If you have recently had your heart broken again, take pride in your courage to keep believing. Regardless of the foregoing, do not be afraid to fall in love. “To fear love is to fear life, and those that fear life are already three parts dead.” If you are currently in a relationship, I am happy for you…My humble advice, luxuriate the good times while they last even if they are temporary. Maybe Mr. Right Now will turn out to be Mr. Right, Maybe he won’t.

But in the end you will realize that love has not really changed. Our generation is as infatuated with finding “the one” as our parents generation was. The only difference is that our odds are better. After all, we are more willing to take chances and risks, more open to living life on our own terms. And DIGITAL LOVE has made us so much braver and stronger.

“The strongest hearts are the ones that have been broken”