Why does the NY Times, even in this time of its uncertainty, get everything right? For example, this snippet from a particularly/bone crushingly honest article from the Honest Love section entitled, "So Tell Me Everything I Know About You".
"I realize it’s hard to resist the impulse when we live in an age of nonstop access. If you’re a skilled time-waster with high-speed cable, it is nearly impossible not to know more than you should about anyone with a searchable name. But in the long run it’s a little less interesting, isn’t it? Just as when you turn the corner and find yourself face to face with your cute new neighbor.
“Oh, hey,” he says, “I was just down at the deli.”
Having just wasted yet another morning poring over his Facebook news feed, you think: 'I know. You needed tomatoes and cereal. I already know.'"
I was contemplating this very issue with my friend Lu just yesterday over one of our hour long phone sessions that occur mid-afternoon when the Facebook stalking is prime. In an age when it is so incredibly easy (not to mention tempting) to Google search that cute hipster you chatted up at the bar last night, the line between what you heard from the horses mouth and what you read in his MySpace blog is blurred.
This is personal because of a certain situation that I have, by choice, continuously involved myself in. A three-thousand mile wide situation. Instead of asking Arizona Jeff what he has been doing, I can just log onto his MySpace profile and see for myself. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Why do I need to spend the extra energy keeping tabs through an actual phone call when everything I need to know is displayed so conveniently for me. It's less emotional, more detached... which I guess for this situation is better for both parties. But if I didn't have this access, things would be closer, more personal, less digital, less safe.
Is that what we are looking for when we type in that name in the search bar at google.com? Safety. A certainty that would be missing by doing the usual "So, tell me about yourself" at the first date? You already know everything. The scar above his right eye is from a skiing accident when he was 12 and his younger brother owns a software company and he resents him for it. It's safe because you are prepared for his answers. It is a fake psychic ability. He got that scar from skiing? You LOVE skiing! His favorite band is Say Anything? That is so funny, you were just listening to them on the way here! Conversation is a synch.
I don't know where I stand on this. I am ashamed of it, but I feel like it is sort of necessary if used only for good. Like karate. Or vodka.
I guess you can walk the blurred line until it disappears from beneath you because you accidentally mentioned that he thinks that you look like Mickey Rourke but might be worth sleeping with anyway and he is positive he never said that out loud and had just written it in his blog not 20 minutes before meeting you at this cafe... FML. You have done it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment