Thoughts on technology

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier; microwaves make dinner faster, cell phones put us in touch with the world anytime, and I dare say a college Mass Comm Law paper would’ve been much better without tackling an old-school card catalog.

Though life is probably much simpler than it was even when my parents were my age, technology is making it tougher to date in 2007. While we used to go out and meet people face-to-face, it is now entirely possible in this age to sit behind the screen and date the Macbook. It also makes it easy to check up on old flames, to Google potential dates, to profile a real-life person with their online profiles. Today, technology is making me wonder, “Can we know too much?” Is ignorance bliss? Is it better to risk meeting an axe-murder in a bar?

A little less than a decade ago, I met someone who is a very cute, fairly prominent photographer in the area. He took pictures for a short-lived fashion magazine, and one night he just showed up at a party I was throwing. I had invited the neighbors, they had invited their friends and before I knew it, I was manning the blender for 50 of my favorite friends and the strangers they had brought with them.

Eventually, it became too much dating the cute photographer because of my own insecurities. To me, I wasn’t skinny enough, I wasn’t pretty enough, and I absolutely believed I could never compare to the models he saw each day through his lens. And in my very mature way (hey, I was in my early-twenties, after all) I eventually quit speaking to him. Since then, I’ve come to terms with myself-- my body, my looks, my entire being, and even though he moved to another city, I have actually gone out with the cute photographer on a few occasions whenever he happens to be in town.

Very recently, he called me to come and “hang out” “sometime soon” during a photo shoot in another city, which sounds like it could be a nice change of pace. And since I find myself continually in need of a change of pace, and continually turned on by very cute photographers, I have recently given more thought to the idea. I have given so much thought to this person from my past that I even gave into a little “crush-Googling,” where I quickly became aware of something:

Technology is a dirty bitch. I discovered a program for a 2006 charity event where there was a listing for a “Mrs. and Mrs. [very cute photographer].” Now here’s the dilemma:
Was this two women who happen to share his same name?
Was this a type-O and he’s married?
Was this a totally different couple, even though his name has a fairly uncommon spelling?
Was I a stalker for even Googling this in the first place?

So many questions that now I can’t possibly call him without sounding like a freak. Do I just blurt out, “Um, so, are you married, or what?”

I think that technology brings out the best in humanity as a whole, but the worst in each of us as individuals because it’s taken away a lot of honest interaction. Rather than pick up the phone and talk, we would rather email the co-worker sitting two cubicles away. Eventually, this makes us very content to keep our personal relationships behind the keyboard...

Or become emotionally confused while forever wondering, “What if?”