It’s About Making Babies!

The divorce rate, and low expectation of number of marriages that will survive until one party passes away, has been ‘surprising’ and ‘awful’ for many years. Maybe since the Sexual Revolution brought the idea of unmarried relations from sordid gossip to mainstream media and the average school and community, in the 1960′s. Remember when the MPAA change ‘PG’ (parental guidance) to ‘GP’, because the midwest practice was to use ‘PG’ as a euphemism for ‘pregnant’. I remember.

So I fail to panic when Annie points out at Smart at Love that cyberlove, forming a romantic attachment to someone encountered only electronically, is probably full of disillusion. It seems for 40 years and more, most relationships have been flawed.

One of Annie’s points is that true intimate relationships depend on body language, and the wonderful realms of communication in facial expressions. This supposes one is skilled in reading these signals correctly, and that one’s partner isn’t blocking or hiding their real feelings and thoughts. And this concern overlooks the vast history of mankind — that the prevalent form of marriage in our past and current in much of the world is arrangement by the parents, usually without regard to whether the couple get along. When custom, law, religious beliefs, and personal expectations coincide the relationships have seemed to be more or less successful, over a very long period of time. Recall that courtly or ‘romantic’ love is new in terms of history, invented more or less about the 1500′s. And the practice isn’t looking that particularly well for most people (unmarried or unsatisfactorily married). I don’t recommend the practice of arranged marriage be attempted in today’s modern world — most families lack the social structure and sheer knowledge and skill to select suitable matches.

People today are fitted with the knowledge that there are many danger signals to heed when picking a partner, and a few contradictory ‘rules’ on how to pick a ‘good one’.

A relationship is based on loyalty, affection, and on an interest in combining lives. Sex is usually present to initiate relationships when people meet face to face, and often clouds concerns about loyalty, character, and presence of affection (as opposed to the *appearance* of affection. Never trust any words spoken 30 minutes before or after orgasm, or the expectation of orgasm.) Relationships that begin when one or more parties are influenced by alcohol or other substances from Nyquil to illegal substances have even more disadvantages toward making a reasoned choice.

We don’t build skills to assess loyalty, to value honor, or to select an appropriate partner. On one hand parents are reluctant to educate kids about relationships because that would include matters dealing with sex. On the other hand, authors make their money selling books, not in organizing a nation-wide concensus about how to select a mate. Churches and schools are limited to approved doctrine and dogma, which are self-serving. Like government and business, schools and churches are in business to remain in business. Churches emphasize picking good church members even after they stopped policing their members for inappropriate behaviors and thoughts. Schools are hampered by having to stand against the discrimination skills needed to decide one potential mate is better than another.

Annie points out in the past some people met in print, and corresponded and formed attachments through the written letter. Today’s electronic IM and emails are able to convey the same conversations, but usually don’t. The old-time letter was expensive to convey, and was usually longer and well thought out. Many times the letter would be copied over for a final, ‘pretty’ appearance. The time it took for an exchange of letters gave time for the writer to consider what was sent, and to look forward to what the response would be. Exchanging letters allowed a sense of loyalty to grow, an extended time devoted to a single person. The infrequency of letters would clearly show whether the writer was interested, intent, or distracted. A sense of the message would convey whether the recipient was one of many, or the only one that the writer cared for. Saving the letters allowed evaluation for subtext and integrity. Often other acquaintances or family would be used to verify and celebrate the relationship.

So online we have the ability to converse in text, but the short conversational style doesn’t allow for well crafted messages. Most times the messages are not kept, or reviewed, so it becomes easier to miss signs of trouble. And we seldom mention anything to do with relationships to family, except ‘Shower — send gifts’ or ‘Wedding — send gifts’.

One of the problems that Annie has with cyber dating is inability to interact with body language signals. I thing she overlooks the problem of people that spend a lot of time — losing the ability to interact face-to-face. Unused skills decay, and have to be relearned. And the electronic pace is a problem, as well. When we grow used to 1/2 hour programs, to 5 minute videos and 3 minute movie trailers, to 30 and 60 second commercial messages, and scanning through lists of spam emails, we lose the skill of patience. Of taking days and months to make an informed decision. Of remembering how to read and manage body language. When those we associate with daily are also electronically centered we won’t even notice.

The lady that text messages while working at the cash register. The parent on the cell phone, sitting at a restaurant table with wife and kids — across from his son engrossed in a portable DVD player. The guy driving down the road, portable digital assistant listing phone numbers in one hand, cell phone in the other. The kid watching hours of ‘kid appropriate’ TV every week, with all it’s commercial interruptions and short story lines.

Cyber dating is a natural for the electronically focused. And, I think, a trap for those on the edge, somewhere between unsure of how to pick a mate in the flesh and overconfident that we understand conversing electronically. I don’t see that cyber dating is that much worse, for those involved, than our parents showed us. And I don’t think either is very successful.