Archive for the ‘Technology and Relationships’ Category

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Can Love Grow Through A Keyboard?

Monday, May 17th, 2010

With the explosion of online connections, cyber introductions, and old-lover google searches, it seems that the whole world is in a digital love frenzy. But can text and email really grow a healthy love connection? The answer is a bit complicated: Sort of and No way.

First of all, what is a healthy love connection? I would say it is a relationship built on trust, honesty, and intellectual commitment. And it usually gets ignited by sexual passion.

The internet is certainly a great place to find sexual passion, since it takes barely a visual whiff or the promise of excitement and/or love, to trigger a sexy juice flow in most people. After all, arousal and orgasm are the sole domain of the individual psyches. We each have an individual pattern of arousal that is triggered by sight, smell, voice, and touch, all related to some early-life events that stimulated us. For instance, years ago I remember, one man examining my manicure closely on a first date. Months later, he shared a distinct memory that in middle school he had had a spontaneous erection at the exact moment that a teacher with a pretty french manicure placed a hand on his desk to emphasize a point during her lecture. In fear of being discovered, he stared at her hand while experiencing a confusing arousal. Even at the age of 35, this man was checking dates for pretty french manicures because the two events had now joined in his mind. While his story is a concrete example with a linear connection to his sexuality, most of us have a Picasso style of arousal, made up of bits and pieces of our memories. And online lovers are a great place to project those patterns, because no one is there in person to dispute the our fantasies.

But there lies the problem with Cyber Love. It is a dance with ourselves. It is a perfect place to imagine the perfect mate. Now, one nice thing about digital communication is that people who are a bit timid about revealing their most secret intimacies in person or via phone, find IM’s. Text, and Emails a safer place. On face value that is true, especially for men, who often have trouble verbalizing feelings. But the danger is two-fold. Text is also a boundary-free world where lovers often disclose too much too soon, before real trust is established. And that can set the relationship up for a pressured first-meeting. I mean, how terrifying to have so much emotional intimacy before one has even walked hand-in-hand with someone. The other serious danger with typed intimacies is that they become a document that can live forever, and what was once an innocent flirtatious remark can be used as a weapon later on.

So my big advice to would-be cyber lovers is to move to telephone chat long before too many secrets have leaked out onto your keyboard. Then when you feel safe, meet in public with friends around. If your relationship continues to grow, use text as an enhancement not as the primary communication. Love and intimacy must grow with eye contact, vocal tone, pheromones, and touch.

Posted in Relationship Tools, Technology and Relationships | 4 Comments »

The Sex Lives of Your Children Are Written on the Wall

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace can be a treasure trove of information for parents. Reading your kids’ status updates is a great way to check in on peer group dynamics, level of media exposure, and school politics. Now research shows that your child’s cyber “wall” can even be an eye-opening place to discover if your adolescent is going to be sexually active anytime soon.

A recent study published by the America Academy of Pediatrics, suggests that displays of sexual references on teens’ Facebook profiles is associated with their intention to initiate intercourse. The study followed 85 college freshmen with public Facebook pages and found a strong association between sexual references on Facebook and real-world intentions to initiate sexual intercourse. Although the study looked at college freshmen, a separate 2007 study conducted by the Center for Disease Control showed that by ninth grade, 33% of adolescent had sexual intercourse, so it’s not far fetched to assume that sexual material posted by younger teens could also reflect real-world intentions.

Prior to this Facebook study, the same researchers, Dr. Megan Moreno of from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, found that 54 percent of MySpace profiles contained high-risk behavior information, with 24 percent referencing sexual behavior. Of course, these on-line postings might indicate real-world risky behaviors or simply adolescent grandstanding, but what parent wants to wait to find out?

By tenth grade, the percentage of sexually active teens is just shy of 50% and this number does not include middle schoolers who engage in oral sex, which apparently is not considered sex despite the fact that one can acquire a sexually transmitted disease from it. Oi! And, parents, if you haven’t caught your breath yet, here’s a sobering statistic from the Center for Disease Control: One-third of American teenaged girls get pregnant before the age of twenty. That’s one in three, ladies and gentlemen.

So when is the right time to talk to kids about sex? That answer is simple: As soon as they start asking. When I was pregnant with my second daughter, my four-year-old asked me how the baby got in my tummy. I briefly flirted with the idea of giving her the pat answer my mother had provided me as a child, that “God put the baby there,” and then decided to tell her the truth. The director of our preschool gave me a delightful children’s book that helped me tell the whole story — yes with artistic sketches that showed “the act.” From that point forward I became the source of sexual information for my kid. Now that she’s in the complicated world of middle school, I am thrilled that she keeps asking and I get to provide biological information laced with my own moral teaching.

So, is it ever too late to start taking about sex with your child? NEVER. Teens may roll their eyes or plug into their iPod but, trust me, they listen to any source of sexual information, even when it comes from a parent.

Social networking sites can be a helpful way to be a virtual parent. Make a family rule that parents must be “friended” on kids pages. Before you know it, you will become lost in your child’s sea of online friends and sooner or later they’ll forget that you are reading their wall. Take postings seriously and use them not as an opportunity to admonish but as an chance to educate.

Bottom line: Know your own sexual morals and messages and find a way to guide your children before our highly sexualized media does it for you.

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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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Love is in the Air?

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Virgin America Airlines is Using a Hip, New Technology to Make Bi-Coastal Travel Anything but Banal.

Somewhere between Los Angeles and New York, I rose from my seat  — 4F. Praying that my too-high Prada boots could master the light bumpiness, I strutted toward the bathroom at the back of the plane. Amidst the shagg-alicious purple and rose lighting that gives Virgin’s main cabin an air of a James Bond movie (circa 1968) I neared the last ten rows of seats. It was then that my peripheral vision detected a few heads bobbing up and curious eyes shooting my way. I wondered who was “ace” in 20D, and “hef” in 24D, or if “elbubble” had logged off before she learned I was walking to the back. And what did the person who had bought me the drink look like?

I should tell you that this attention has nothing top do with my looks, per se. This silent, though awkward, introduction was a direct result of a seat-to-seat chat group chat that I had initiated. It is Virgin’s latest bid to fully secure the attention of that coveted demographic — young, monied, tech-friendly, hipsters. And, let me tell you, it’s kinda cool.

I would argue that I am the bravest extrovert on the plane, maybe on the planet. Many people are a little too shy to barge onto a strangers private screen mid-air with an invitation to chat, but not me. I looove new tech and I love to watch how people relate, so this flight was a perfect match for my two loves. The start was inauspicious. Using the handheld keyboard and the touchscreen on the seat back in front of me, I choose a screen name, “Doctor” and randomly selected twelve seats on the plane to “invite” into my chat room. I swallowed my pride as most declined my invitation but a few stayed. As we started chatting they invited others whom they wanted to get to know. At one point we realized that “David” in 24D was the only dude amongst a gaggle of gals so he cheekily changed his screen name to “hef.” The conversations roamed from books, to professions and onto to nightspots in our destination city. A really nice chat-mate named “ace” even took drink orders and bought a round for the group. When the flight attendant surprised me with the drink, it came with a handwritten note from “ace” that had been written on scrap paper that was the back of a screenplay. This launched us into a conversation about screenwriting. “ace” prefers horror. I prefer Rom-coms.

Soon other chat rooms began to open simulteneously. Private ones. Some adventurous text-fiends broke away to create more personal conversations å deux. One young man flirted and flattered me in chat room number four by calling me Mrs. Robinson. This is exactly the kind of thing Virgin hopes its passengers will do. Make flying feel like an opportunity to meet and mix rather than a tiresome bus ride.

As I waited in the back of the plane for a bathroom vacancy, I chatted with a flight attendant about seat-to-seat chat. She says it’s becoming wildly popular and is always amazed that on every flight, some chatting duo eventually meets at the back of the plane to get a visual and exchange the digits. Our conversation was overheard by bathroom line eavesdroppers who rushed back to their seats to log on. By the time I returned to my seat “hef” had some serious competition in chat room two. And the young man in the private chat-room, the one who fancied himself “the graduate,” had eyeballed my aisle walk and texted me his real-world email address.

Oh, and did I fail to mention that love isn’t the only thing in the air on Virgin America?  Business networking happens to. A friendly young film executive dropped by my seat to give me her card after seeing me chat about a screenplay I am working on. Love and money. Virgin America, you are on to something big here.

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Can Your Online Friends Hurt Your Image?

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Another creepy way that social media is being used — credit card companies and other financial institutions are experimenting with algorithms that profile your online friends. Based on the theory that our character is a reflection of the company we keep, if they do succeed and institute the computer application, what will they really find out? That some of our friends swear, get photographed drunk at parties, or sadly, have a puny social network? And what might that say about our financial stability?

Up until recently, the biggest factor that swayed credit card companies’ opinions about our honesty and timeliness was our credit rating. One’s credit rating is based on the adage if you aim to predict someone’s future behavior, look at their past behavior. Smart, responsible people who haven’t bitten off more than they can chew and who make payments on time will probably continue to behave that way. But that was in the old economy.

In the new economy, with joblessness rates still soaring and the number of real estate foreclosures continuing to mount, a rolling snowball of good people now have bad credit — through no fault of their own. And when the economy’s wheels begin to get greased again and the train is up and running, there will be a huge population of viable consumers with unattractive credit ratings. So how do money lenders separate the losers-by-nature from the losers-by-default?

Easy. They connect the social networking dots using psychology. Here’s one example: A study out of the University of Utah called, “Personality and the Formation of Social Networks” found that extroverted people have larger online social networks and people with an “openness new experience,” have more negative ties with online friends than those who are considered “conscientiousness.” Hold that thought for a minute and draw a line between those findings and a Taiwanese study that showed that personality traits–openness to experience, and conscientiousness–can lead individuals to develop a passion for online shopping activities.

Huh? A compulsion to shop is related to a person who is “open to experience,” which is related to a large social network? These are the kinds of clues that computer researchers are looking to integrate into the detective algorithms. That and the information from the content you post yourself, from Political views, to religion, to mommy-news. Yikes! Would too many “mommy postings” signal to a computer that you aren’t working enough?

And lest you think that you can fool the world by creating an electronic foot print that is an inflated version of yourself, think again. A recent study out of the University of Texas reports that that online social networking profiles convey accurate images of the profile owners, either because people aren’t trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off.

Bottom line. Our psychology plays out online much the way it does in the real world with both friend selection and behavior.

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Ten Rules For High Tech Love

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

imagesText, Email, Facebook, & Twitter give the appearance of instant access to your lover. A way to stay connected. But it’s a clever trick. The very things that are designed to keep us closer, if used incorrectly, can brutally tear us apart.

To understand what I mean, let’s think about the things that keep a low-tech relationship sharp — plenty of face-to-face time, long conversations, great sex (with foreplay and after-play), and intimate activities like Sunday morning toe-touching in bed with the New York Times. These practices are the workhorse of intimacy, and they are irreplaceable.

Now let’s consider a modern “high-tech” relationship. A few texts or emails sent during the week to firm up weekend plans. A rendezvous on the weekend that may or may not involve sex (or may involve only sex and no date) and then a Facebook status report on Monday that confirms that your partner is  indeed “in a relationship.” You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you? Not a bit. People write to me all the time with questions about the meaning and protocol of Facebook’s “In a Relationship” descriptor. And during the week, those same people hang onto their electronic device like it is a life-line to love. They reread the texts. They count the texts. They interpret the texts. They depend on a string of impulsive digital communications to determine how secure their relationship is!

This is not compassionate love, people. This is a crazy mind game. And it is not communication. It is a poor replacement for healthy communication.

I used the example of text because most people are oblivious to how dangerous a weapon it can be. With text’s brevity and it’s inability to gage the mood of the receiver, those 140 characters can be packed with a power to inflict great pain if taken the wrong way, and read at the wrong time. Of course, email has it’s on list of transgressions. A longer format and a safer place to express feelings, email is still void of eye contact, touch, body language, and voice tone. Could you imagine listening to a recording of your favorite band, with most of the instruments missing? That’s what email is to human communication.

With all that said, in the busy world of convenience and multi-taking, is there, in fact, a way to use technology to grow love verses extinguish it? Well, thank you for asking! Yes, there certainly is. Here’s Dr. Walsh’s list of Do’s and Don’ts for high Tech love:

Ten Rules for Using Technology to Grow Love:

1. Make sure phone calls outnumber emails. Emails are not a substitute for voice-to-voice communication. They are just a side dish.

2. Send texts regularly, every other day or so. If you are dating and growing a relationship, a short, brief text can help you stay in his or her mind. If you are married and/or living together a text every now and then can help keep love alive.

3. Don’t bombard them with texts! (or emails) That’s stalker shit.

4. Only say positive things in a text. 140 characters is no room to criticize, complain, offer advice, or explain your complicated life. Stick to greeting card slogans: “Thinking of You” and “Wish Your Were Here.”

5. Use tech to schedule a more intimate phone call. This is what all boys and girls like to read in a text or email: “Missing You! What time can we chat?”

6. If you are on Facebook and see that your date or mate is also online, it is always polite to send a IM of hello. In the real world if you both turned up at the same party, you wouldn’t ignore them, right?

7. Tech is meant to be a two-way conversation. If anyone you care about sends you an email or a text, and you are swamped, you still must respond! Even the most busy of us can find a second to send at least a happy face. Keep the line of communication going and the next phone call will be a happy one.

8. Even if you have a good excuse, do not flirt with anyone on Facebook if your status reads “In a Relationship.” That’s a bonehead move.

9. Never Tweet or Facebook Post any information about your real-world relationships (Especially the one with your Ex!) To do so would be inviting a forum to enter your tender relationships. Intimacy must grow in privacy.

10. Never break up using technology. Period. If you were brave enough to enter the relationship with your voice (or any other body part) you can find the cojones to break up with grace and class. Use your words, people. And say it out loud.

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Manufacturerd Sperm! Are Men Becoming Extinct?

Friday, October 16th, 2009

6492_119164371833_115788661833_2926283_5715708_nDON’T TELL MEN THIS! But, they are about to become extinct. I know, I know. This is startling news for me to receive, too. Because, I like men. I mean, I really, really like men, and the thought of living on a man-less planet is kinda creepy. But here are the facts, according to some forward thinking biologists. We recently learned to manufacture sperm.

Women have very intelligent bodies. Our double X chromosome protect us from many diseases because if we inherit a deadly disorder on one side of our X chain, there’s a good chance we have a healthy back-up X to compensate. We also express more genes overall than males, who have one X and one Y. The X chromosome – one of 24 chromosomes found in human cells – is much larger than the relatively puny Y (sorry guys, size, apparently, does matter). Our X contains 1,098 genes to the Y’s 78.

This means that female mammals contain over 1,000 more genes than males. To compensate for this, the female body switches off one X chromosome – quite randomly – in each cell. Men often fall victim to diseases carried on the X chromosome because they don’t have a back-up copy of the gene on the second chromosome. Poor babies. More than 300 conditions have been linked to the X chromosome so far, from heart disease to cancers, but since us gals have another – usually healthy – copy of the X chromosome, we are shielded from the full impact of these disorders. Now multiply that fact by about one-hundred thousand years of dating, mating and procreating and you start to see how men might become an endangered species.

So there’s the writing on the wall that men may be on their way out. Add to this chromosome problem, the facts that male premature infants are less likely to survive, and the fact that, well, the male lifespan is shorter, and the picture becomes clearer.

A few years ago, I sat on an airplane beside a young, handsome, smart, version of an XY chromosome and he spelled it out for me. He could do this because he was a human biology professor in Great Britain. And he spelled it out with such a lovely English accent. I told him I was writing a book about feminine intelligence and I asked him to give me his opinion on the intelligence of women’s biology. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, for starters, it’s been calculated that in 125,000 years men will be extinct.”

I laughed at that. “Don’t you mean that the entire human species will be extinct then?”

He looked at me with a stone cold stare and calmly stated, “This week the first human infant was born using frozen sperm and a frozen egg. Don’t you think that in 125,000 years, you girls will have figured out how to make sperm for yourself?”

Apparently, this year we did. Use it wisely, girls.

Posted in Gender, Sexuality, Technology and Relationships | 1 Comment »

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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Dumped by an Online Lover Before You Even Met. Why does it Hurt so Much?

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

imagesOnline love connections happen everyday, partly because, in the last decade, the popularity of dating sites has grown exponentially. The top five dating sites boast a combined 65-million users, and add to that the “hooking up” that happens through social networking sites, and you can see it’s a whole new world of dating, mating, and relating. For single parents the allure of meeting a romantic suitor online is huge because it so darned convenient. Courtship can be managed without makeup, high heels, or an expensive dinner and babysitter. It’s great for guys. Not one dime shelled out for romantic dates. Sounds like a win-win. But more often it’s a lose-lose.

One new phenomenon in the high-tech dating landscape is the online or telephone break up that occurs even before the first date. Here’s the usual scenario: You meet a potential mate online and begin an email exchange that evolves into a phone and text relationship. Photos are exchanged. Intimacies are revealed. Weeks or months may go by as your build up to that first date. You begin to fantasize about your possible lives together. Then it’s suddenly over. If you’re lucky you get “the chat” or in worst cases you are suddenly defriended on Facebook. And when this happens the feelings are very real and very visceral. Confusing, I know. This person wasn’t even a real-world presence. Yet the feelings of loss were so painful. Like a real break up, you drag your feet for a week or longer and vow never to enter love’s snare again.

In one other scenario of this mating dance, you finally do meet in the real world, and after one meeting, everything falls apart. The spell is broken and he or she disappears from your cyber world.

So, psychologically speaking, what’s going on here? Let’s start with what’s NOT going on here. What’s not going on here is authentic love. What’s not going on here is even a relationship. What IS going on here is something Psychologists call mutual, positive projections. In an online courtship, you are in love with your own fantasies of what the perfect love-mate is, that is, your own projections. And, he or she (if they are even being honest about their gender) is doing the same thing. It’s like you have a blank screen on which to project a perfect sketch of a mate. And it feels real because the online love interest plays along just enough to feed your fantasies. In a cyber match up, you are not in love with an individual, a real, thinking, breathing, flawed, individual. You are in love with hope. Hope that this time this person could be the one to bring you happiness. And when that hope is taken away, it hurts. It hurts bad. The loss of hope can sometimes hurt even more than the loss of a real-world guy who might not have put the toilet seat down or a real gal prone to neurotic bouts of PMS. Because in a cyber break up, you’ve lost the perfect mate.

Add to those feelings of loss, the feelings of shame that you divulged so many intimate secrets about yourself. To a total stranger, no less. Some people feel more comfortable getting a root canal than talking about their feelings. But for some reason typing feelings feels less threatening, so chances are this was one of your most intimate risks. Although the love wasn’t real, the feelings associated with the break up can be very, very real.

So, what’s the solution? To swear off cyber love forever? No. Meeting a potential partner online is a great way to find a budding relationship. The protective solution is not to avoid the game but to know the psychological rules. And the rules are simple: Exert boundaries online and meet in the real world before projections run wild.

What does that mean? It means that it’s perfectly okay to have a few email exchanges that amount to some cocktail party chat. Safe subjects might include: the weather, sports, your family structure, age & hair color, your college alma-mater or hometown. But steer clear of conversations that involve your past (or present) relationships, your fears, loves, childhood pain, and aspirations for life. This kind of talk is guaranteed to feed the machine of romantic projections.

Then try to meet quickly while you are both still strangers and can sniff mutual pheromones before your heart has been put on the table. And, for darned sake, if you’re a woman, do it as safely as possible. He could be an axe murderer! Get all his real-world contact info, check it out, and then text it to your best friend before you meet. Bring your own car and meet in daylight in a familiar place. If there is a counter, sit up at the counter so the staff are aware you are there and this is a meeting with a stranger. No dark tables in the back where the date rape drug can be administered privately! And, gentlemen, please don’t take it personally when a woman behaves this way. Be understanding and make it as comfortable as possible for her.

One other thought, ladies: If that little motherly chat has you too scared to meet in the real world, let me ask you this: If you are leery about having coffee, why would you spend hours late at night chatting online and handing him your heart on a silver platter? Oh yes, the allure of the perfect mate.

Online love can be intoxicating and addicting to both genders. But an online lover will never split the mortgage, sub for a carpool run, or cook you a great dinner. Remember that, people. Yes, this time, it’s all in your head.

Posted in Dating, Love, Technology and Relationships | 3 Comments »

Chronic Texters Beware: You Could Have Anxious Attachment Disorder.

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

woman-yelling-at-cell-phone-250There has been much in the media about a psychological injury called an “attachment disorder” as it pertains to babies and parents, but there is an adult version that relates to romantic attachments. There are adults walking among us, stumbling through the world of dating, mating, and relating, while reliving their own preverbal, infantile emotional injuries. Some have a style of attachment that brings as many feelings of anxiety as comfort, and they are called “anxious” attachers. To understand this, let’s take a look at what attachment theory is.

History of Attachment Theory
In his book, Becoming Attached, author Dr. Robert Karen sums up the work of the pioneers of attachment theory well. From the birth of attachment theory, with such thinkers as John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, and Mary Main, came the notion that a trusted person — an attachment figure — offers an infant a secure base. A child whose needs are met with appropriate attention, affection, and empathic words will grow to trust the world and to trust relationships, and will translate that feeling of trust to a romantic partner in adult life. John Bowlby, an English psychotherapist from the first part of the last century, is often called the father of attachment theory. He believed that the ties to the parent gradually weaken as the child gets older, and that the secure base function is slowly shifted to other figures, eventually resting on one’s mate.

This tendency of the child to attach in the ways he or she was attached to his/her parents happens because the functions of attachment become an internal property of the child. In other words, we are often unaware of our own attachment style. Attachment theory involves a way of relating to others based on communications and behaviors of both parents in the first years of life. These “messages” about how to love are then combined with a child’s own interactions with each parent, and become an influential cognitive structure — a hard-wired piece of our personality.

Three Principal Patterns of Attachment
Attachment researchers have categorized people based on three principal patterns of attachment. The first is a pattern of secure attachment, in which the person is confident that a parent (usually Mom, and eventually a lover) will be available, responsive, and helpful.

The second is that of anxious resistant attachment, in which the individual is uncertain if a parent will be available and because of that uncertainty, is prone to separation anxiety and is anxious about exploring the world.

The third pattern is an anxious avoidant attachment, in which the individual has no confidence that when he or she seeks care, they will be responded to, and on the contrary, expects rejection.

Adult Romantic Attachment
These three kinds of patterns play out in adult romantic life as well. It is estimated that only about 20 percent of the American population has secure attachment behaviors — the ability to give and receive care with comfort, and a degree of self-esteem that is not dependent on their lover’s reinforcement. What’s left in most of us? We either have a tendency to avoid feelings and closeness, or a confusing pattern of craving and mistrusting love — in various degrees, of course.

People with anxious attachment disorder are vigilant clock-watchers. Since they are dependent on contact and affirmation from their partner, they have an uncanny ability to sense if contact is waning. They tend to be chronic voice mail and e-mail checkers, and have a need for constant texting. They can also be easily prone to feelings of jealousy. They love and respect their partner, but are also wary that that love may disappear. And, while people with anxious attachment disorder crave closeness, they can also be surprisingly terrified when they actually get what they crave. We’ve all met or dated someone who sent us contradictory messages and led us to believe they were interested, only to disappear or behave badly and send us running. People with anxious attachment disorder don’t trust that love is real or reliable, and so they often behave badly when things feel too good.

The good news is that attachment disorders can be healed. An empathetic, ethical therapist can foster a healthy therapist/patient relationship that rebuilds adult attachment style. Patients learn how to depend on relationships, to trust love, and to tolerate criticism and consistent contact. If you feel you are suffering from an attachment disorder, try to find a therapist who specializes in attachment theory.

Attachment theory holds so many keys to adult romantic pair bonding. The unique mating dance of couples is choreographed by the internal world of both partners, creating, in the end, a performance that runs the gamut from an embracing waltz to one in which the dancers continually step on each others’ feet. It is a reflection of the secret world of an infant and parent, played out again with a grown-up body and a new kind of mother — a lover.

(Reposted from www.Mom.Logic.com)

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