The Dilemma of Dating GPS
OK, I’m a stalker. So are you. But we don’t mean it, not really...
Technology has made us this way. See, depending on how ‘new media’ The Guy You’re Seeing is, at any given time you’ll be able to ascertain if he is awake (Skype), online (iChat, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk, Facebook), what he’s doing and with who (Twitter), and even the exact moment he opened your last BlackBerry messenger or SMS. (Really. They’re called delivery reports. Proceed with caution.)
Now, there’s a good chance you don’t actually want to know these things. However, as anyone with an Internet connection and a propensity for social networking knows, this information is hurled at you whether you want it or not.
It’s like a GPS system, only for dating. But, unlike that nice woman with the British accent in your car, this system isn’t quite as wonderful as it appears. Sure, it’s feverishly exciting when you first meet, but ‘dating GPS’ can morph into cruel and unusual punishment when the relationship tapers off.
It begins innocently enough. When you’re infatuated with a guy, you can’t know enough about him. You’re a big, fat, thirsty sponge, soaking up every little drop of information on him you can find: his star sign, his job, who his friends are, who his ex-girlfriend was... It was always like this, well before MacBooks and MySpace, only back in the ‘old days’ we had to do our stalking verbally by subtly asking about him to people who knew him, hoping it wouldn’t get back.
(Obviously, stalking via Google in the privacy of your own home is far more convenient, not to mention more beneficial in maintaining that crucial allure of indifference. With one simple search, you have photos, a place of work, comments he’s made on blogs or forums and, most importantly, his finishing time in the 1999 City2Surf.)
Mesh this hunger for knowledge combined with our addiction to being in touch with everyone we’ve ever met, and we begin to amass a constellation of communication channels for The Guy. We get their number. Then e-mail. Their BlackBerry Messenger pin. We find them (or they find us) on Facebook, AIM, iChat, Skype and Twitter. Pretty soon, we have an impressive dossier of communiqué and, before long, we’re scooting between the various mediums with great speed and familiarity – an e-mail here, a wall post there; a Skype here, an instant chat there... (And to think, 10 years ago, all we had was a landline and a street address for throwing rocks at windows at 4am. How utterly primitive.)
The appeal, l must concede, is strong. Logging on and seeing that he, too, is online creates a little shiver of excitement. Will he see that you’re online and contact you? Will he wait for you to contact him? Who goes first? Someone has to – I mean, you can’t both be online at the same time and pretend you haven’t noticed. That’s just silly, right? While you are waiting, you might just check his Facebook wall...
Of course, the downside to having access to all of this information is that the more ways you have of knowing where they are or what they are up to when you’re smitten, the more torturous it is when you’re not smitten. Instead of logging off disappointed he didn’t contact you when he was online, you log off pissed off. It’s like SMS Reply Rage, but worse, because you know he’s there and therefore can’t even make the excuse that he must have gone for a surf and so isn’t near his cellphone and that’s why he hasn’t written.
With devastating velocity, the fun and excitement that accompanied tracking their online life turns into impatience, insult and rage. How is it that he has no time to respond to your SMS when his Facebook status says he’s hungover and glued to the lounge? It’s like an office relationship – working together is the best fun ever when you’re in love, but not so fantastic when the love has gone and you want to stab each other in the eye with a fork.
Whenever a friend of mine saw her man come online, she’d pounce. He pounced equally, and it was a gas. But then he backed off. Started calling less. Became elusive when asked about weekend plans. Which made it awkward when my friend saw he was online. Should she contact him? She defiantly hadn’t SMSed him, but was online different? Trump the usual contact protocol? I mean, they both knew the other was right there at their computer, so it would be weird not to message him, right?
Uh, no. lf you see your mom pop up on your Skype list, do you automatically feel you two should chat? No. Just because he’s online, don’t mean it’s chat time. The key to navigating these waters calmly is to remember that, for every communication channel you enter with a man, there may come a time when the two of you aren’t so chummy, and that it will be tender to see he’s online or what he’s up to.
Of course, the obvious (slash most difficult) solution when things go bad is to simply delete him from your online contacts, Facebook friends and phone so you no longer know or care. However, this is often the time when you want to stalk him the most. Which is precisely why you shouldn’t; you should stalk a new guy instead – loads more fun!