Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Connecting in The Age of Technology

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

New Tools. No Rules. That’s what I call the technological revolution.

I have three stories to tell that illustrate how technology is affecting the way we date, mate, and relate.  Story number one comes from the wisdom of a middle school girl, with one entire school semester of dating experience under her belt and a lifetime of tech training. She reminded me that the game of love has a whole new high-tech playing field. I was having dinner in a California Pizza Kitchen with three twelve-year-old girls and I received a text from a 47-year-old guy I’d been dating for about six weeks.

“Oooh” sang my own daughter in an age-old schoolgirl taunt “Is that from your boyfriend?”

I responded with a defensive girlish quip that I perfected twenty-five years ago, “He’s NOT my boyfriend!”

Her friend immediately took meaning from my response and followed firmly with, “Oh, then you only text.” As if to imply that a texting relationship is indeed a kind of relationship but not one that deserves the title of boyfriend.

Then I confused her. “No, we talk too. But only via cell. I haven’t given him my home number yet. And we have dinner dates,” I said.

I watched her eyes widen as her tech savvy mind tried to make sense of what I was saying. “Well, is he your Facebook friend?”

“No.” I said, “We’re not ready for that.”

“Does he follow you on Twitter?”

“Nope.”

Then she gave me a look that read, “How can you sit at the same lunch table with someone who isn’t even online with you?”

It was then that I realized that today, the level of two people’s tech infiltration indicates a level of intimacy and indeed, commitment.

Story number two is a bummer for one almost-bride and reminds us that technology affords few people privacy. This one from a friend. A guy finally gets up the nerve to ask his longtime girlfriend to marry him. Just weeks before the wedding, he finds her tagged in an old photo on Facebook. The photo was innocently posted by a not-so-brainy gal pal as part of a party album and shows the future bride loopy and draped across the lap of an ex-boyfriend. The album is dated and when the groom does the math (Boys are so good at math, aren’t they?) he discovers that this sexy party shot was snapped just weeks before his marriage proposal. Because of this, he calls off the wedding.

Story number three comes from one of my blog readers. A New York City real estate agent is out on a date with a lovely woman who works in television marketing. She is 35, comes from a family that never divorced, loves her sister’s kids to death, and is seriously ready to have a family. The problem is this: The guy she is sitting at the dinner table with has an online love in Dubai, a real world college sweetheart in Chicago whom he keeps in touch via text and email and visits about once a month, and a line-up of local dates waiting in the wings on Match.com. How can he ever hear the call of true love over the din created by so many opportunities for love? And they all exist because of technology.

The Problem

In this high-tech age, our culture and circumstance run interference against that course of evolution. That is, to attach long enough to breed and nurture offspring who can form their own healthy bonds and attachments. Today, healthy attachments are threatened by a permissive society, a sexualized media, too much opportunity that creates “Love ADD”, all fueled by technology.

Technology was designed to keep us connected but it has morphed into a monster that has millions of people keeping in touch, yet touching nothing tender. Take Twitter as a prime example. The text-based megaphone to your contact list limits your feelings to 140 characters or less (including spaces.) Unless you are Ernest Hemmingway, it is impossible to communicate anything of substance with such brevity. Text may be instant, but it is far from intimate. It is a communication void of body language, eye contact, vocal tone, and pheromones. Imagine your favorite band without the drummer or the vocalist and you’ll understand how inferior text communication is. Even longer messages sent via Facebook, MySpace, or traditional Email, may be filled with more words, but can be seriously lacking in emotional content, especially if one is not a very good writer. So much is lost in this kind of communication.

The Answer

Believe it or not, I’m not down on tech. Technology, if used correctly can be a strategic way to find and keep love. It can be used for its original purpose, to keep people connected. To help lovers express what they may be shy to say out loud, to help families schedule tech-free time to relate, and even to help heal the wounds of a relationship rupture. But the key is the knowledge of how to use technology to grow and keep love, and how avoid its hazards. We need a set of tech rules for love and I’m open to hearing your ideas for how to use these new tools to find and keep a mate.

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Are Facebook Friends Real?

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

When E.M. Forster wrote the famous line in Howards End, “Only connect,” I wonder if he could have envisioned the phenomenon of Facebook.

woman using laptop computer

Dr. Wendy Walsh: Like most of you, when I first logged onto the site, I felt nervous. This was a new social world with blurry rules of conduct. The lack of boundaries and potential for social and business gaffs was intimidating. The instant access to and from people who crossed our paths in a station of life where we no longer reside, was a strange event. (Yes, I have received some sheepish apologies and sent some myself.)

I’d always mistrusted technology. It felt like a detached form of communication. What with the time lag, the lack of voice tone and body language, who could really know what was being said, anyway? Add to that the mass distribution of personal blurbs, and this whole thing felt inauthentic. Were we all just narcissists jumping on our own soapbox looking for our 15 minutes in our small pond? And what of those whose ponds had become lakes and oceans — the non-celebrity Facebook users who have thousands of “friends”? How could that be a connection? E.M. Forster also wrote this in Howards End: “I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them.”

I watched my news feed for weeks, frozen with thoughts of how and why.

Then I jumped in. Gingerly, at first. A few personal status reports. Then the creation of a separate Facebook page to bring my brand into the social networking world. Yes, I admit, it was commercial motivations that helped me see the light.

Then events started to take place in my life and I realized that I had been wrong about Facebook. It is a huge way to connect in a real way, about real stuff.

First, I was at a real-world party and I saw Linda Thompson, a woman I have known briefly in the early 90s when I interviewed an Academy Award winner and her then-husband. Back then, we had connected over a shared interest in helping disadvantaged youth. But the overlap in our lives was not large enough, and we soon swam away into our different parts of the ocean. Almost two decades later, I would never have approached her to say hello at the party, except that we had become Facebook friends and I wanted to compliment her on the promotion she does for her son and his TV show. Now, when she posts things along the lines of: Brody Jenner had recently felt lonely in a Toronto hotel room and caught a commercial for a non-profit dedicated to kids in Africa and immediately called to donate money, I feel connected. I know where his heart is, for I once witnessed his mother’s heart. And my feelings were not inauthentic.

Sometimes Facebook feels like a friendly connection that transforms our anonymous city into a village. Yesterday morning, I read a post from John Fanaris, a father at my children’s school. John is a big wine guy with a cellar I am completely envious of. His wife, Noelle, is a super chef, so I am doubly envious. John had posted a status report that he would be dining with friends who were also big wine and food enthusiasts, and asked his Facebook friends for suggestions of what to uncork that evening. Later that afternoon, I was sitting alone in an outdoor cafe, coincidentally reading Food & Wine magazine, and I heard my name called out. I looked up to see the entire Fanaris family trotting in from the beach. I waved and said, “Have you decided on which wine yet, John?” A Facebook conversation had moved seamlessly into the real world, sans a time lag.

Sometimes Facebook is a practical connection. A virtual parent. One day when I couldn’t reach my 11-year-old daughter on her cell phone, I sent her a Facebook status report because I had an intuition she was “Facebooking” on her iPod touch. She got back to me quickly.

At other times, Facebook is a tragic connection. A few months ago, a former co-worker from KCOP Channel 13 in Los Angeles, Lisa Sanders, had “friended” me. We exchanged a few nice reconnection e-mails. She complimented me on my growing, healthy kids. We asked about other mutual co-workers. Then last week, Lisa suddenly died of a stroke. I would never have known that, had I not been on Facebook. News of her funeral was posted on her page. Her wall is now filled with touching goodbyes from all her friends, including me. Her Facebook page has become an electronic monument to a sweet woman who died too soon. And the tears that swelled in my eyes when I read the news on Facebook were real.

So, I take it back. Facebook is an addicting addition to all our human connections. We seek out the comfort of another’s company and empathy to stave off loneliness. We do it in the real world with our lovers and families, and we do it electronically because it feels good to be seen and heard, and to know that we can be a part of the lives of so many.

“One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.” — E.M. Forster

Reposted from MomLogic.com

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Finding an Old Flame on Facebook. A Users Guide.

Monday, September 14th, 2009

imagesFound Your First Love on Facebook? Great if you’re both single. Dangerous if one of you is married.

In the last few weeks, three married friends have confided to me that they have searched for, and found, their first love on Facebook. In my small world this number represents a huge trend, so I’m going out on a limb to guess that this is going on all over the country. I am backed up by a recent article on Time.com that quotes other people who are doing it and who don’t live in my neighborhood. So, it’s real. But, why is this happening? And how dangerous is it?

The “why” is pretty simple for me to understand. Our first love affair, whether it was consummated or not, was an enormous emotional event. Those powerful memories of young love and sexual arousal stick for life, so the opportunity to revisit those feelings is pretty darn seductive. Add to that the fact that the largest growing group on Facebook is made up of users aged 35-54. While their college aged counterparts used social networking  to find people in other classes, older Facebookers, use it to find people in other parts of their memory banks. Case in point, although I grew up in several cities in Canada and now live in Los Angeles, I am hosting a cocktail party this week for Facebook friends from my elementary, high-school, and college years. Some live here now and some are flying in. None of them know each other. I am the only connection. I’ll let you know how that one goes.

As for the finding the “first love” trend, there’s even a name for it. The Boston Phoenix calls it “retrosexuals”, meaning people who are opting for recycled love. This is all well and good, if both parties are single. The media is full of stories about divorced people taking a second stab at love with their first fling, but what if there are marriages and vows involved? Oh, yah, that. How dangerous can an innocent email exchange be?

Hugely dangerous. The problem starts when you first hit that “friend request” button. You have betrayed your spouse and are now entering the uncharted waters of an emotional affair. I mean, you’re not looking up the geek from eleventh grade who got you through algebra. You’re looking up the hot guy or gal you once lost sleep over. There is an emotional connection with maybe even some sexual memories attached.

The next problem is what to do when he or she answers your cyber call. Do you start an emailed, intimate foray into your emotional world? Do you look for ways to meet? What about if you keep it boundaried and chat lightly about your family and his/hers? Still dangerous, people. Take the example of a married woman who has found her former homecoming king. Even if she and her husband went so far as to invite he and his wife over for drinks, there’s still an affair if the unsuspecting husband doesn’t know the full value of his wife’s feelings for the man he’s handing a beer to.

Besides putting yourself (and your marriage) in the path of a potential affair, looking up an old flame isn’t always as rosy as the anecdotes in today’s media. All humans change across the lifespan, physically, intellectually and emotionally. You are two very different people now. The likelihood that sparks will fly in your condo as well as they did behind the bleachers, is pretty small. Relationships tend to be time and place sensitive.

So, with all that said, I will now disclose that the only reason I can sit up on this soapbox is because my first love, Carl Brittain, isn’t on Facebook. I know, because I already tried to find him.

Fire up that flame, ladies and gentlemen, at your own risk. Just be prepared to give some business to therapists and divorce attorneys.


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