I was looking through the boxes underneath my bed: old shoe boxes, about six or seven of them, filled with letters and pictures. Hundreds of handwritten letters from that time before the internet existed. You know, that time mobile phones were the new revolution and we all begged our parents to get us one and it was this large, chunky, heavy Nokia which we could have never imagined would become the technology hub it is today. There was no Google and no BBM. If you wanted to reach someone, you had to call them at home, not too early and not too late, otherwise their parents might get angry. And when the other person would pick up the phone, they wouldn't know it was you instantly because there was no such thing as caller ID and you just had to spend that awkward minute explaining who you are.
Now you can find someone you've met once in a random bar and whose last name you can't remember just by searching on Facebook and guessing by your "friends in common." In stead of going back to that bar every night for a week trying to see her again, or chasing down friends to figure out who the mystery girl is and magically end up by getting her phone number, or her address or something --you just poke her. Or you can send an "inbox" message: now that is what I would call romance in the 21st century.
I have all kinds of letters in those old boxes. And they are dusty and I can barely make out the handwriting, but every word I read makes me smile. There is something so precious about the time it took for each of these letters to be written. By hand. When was the last time you wrote anything by hand, except maybe a grocery list, or your signature on your credit card receipts. With a letter you could play with colors and spray perfume on it and pick a nice envelope. Now there's email. You write a few sentences with words that don't contain all their letters because we live in a world where if you can gain half a millisecond by typing "r" in stead of "are" then you do it. No one even addresses it to you anymore, there is no "dear" anything it's like your email to: is enough. The signature at the end is automatic so you don't bother with that either. You just get straight to the point. Forget the time where post-its could be spread around the house with little Xs and Os --my mom use to leave them on the bathroom mirror for my dad to see them when he woke up, and it was never just "don't forget to buy some toothpaste," there would be a whole seductive energy around it that would make him smile instead of seeing as a chore. Now you'd barely get an sms: toothpaste plz.
And there was a time where even an sms could be romantic, you know, when they first started. We used to "save" the special ones and read them over and over again. A guy would send you a text message that he spent an hour writing, putting in all his feelings because it's easier to write it than to say it. And there we would sit around with my friends and compare our romantic messages one after the other. Now there's BBM. It's like you're on a chat-room 24/7. Of course you've got the heart emoticon and the hug emoticon and the kiss emoticon but that just means that they are finding new ways for us to write less and less.
I guess what I'm trying to say is --technology killed romance. And if we don't try to revive it, we're gonna forget it even existed. So I'm just gonna throw this out there: write a letter to someone you love and make them feel that special excitement of receiving it, and opening it, and discovering the words line after line and then keeping it safe somewhere for years to come. Not in a folder with a blue label in their gmail inbox.
Now you can find someone you've met once in a random bar and whose last name you can't remember just by searching on Facebook and guessing by your "friends in common." In stead of going back to that bar every night for a week trying to see her again, or chasing down friends to figure out who the mystery girl is and magically end up by getting her phone number, or her address or something --you just poke her. Or you can send an "inbox" message: now that is what I would call romance in the 21st century.
I have all kinds of letters in those old boxes. And they are dusty and I can barely make out the handwriting, but every word I read makes me smile. There is something so precious about the time it took for each of these letters to be written. By hand. When was the last time you wrote anything by hand, except maybe a grocery list, or your signature on your credit card receipts. With a letter you could play with colors and spray perfume on it and pick a nice envelope. Now there's email. You write a few sentences with words that don't contain all their letters because we live in a world where if you can gain half a millisecond by typing "r" in stead of "are" then you do it. No one even addresses it to you anymore, there is no "dear" anything it's like your email to: is enough. The signature at the end is automatic so you don't bother with that either. You just get straight to the point. Forget the time where post-its could be spread around the house with little Xs and Os --my mom use to leave them on the bathroom mirror for my dad to see them when he woke up, and it was never just "don't forget to buy some toothpaste," there would be a whole seductive energy around it that would make him smile instead of seeing as a chore. Now you'd barely get an sms: toothpaste plz.
And there was a time where even an sms could be romantic, you know, when they first started. We used to "save" the special ones and read them over and over again. A guy would send you a text message that he spent an hour writing, putting in all his feelings because it's easier to write it than to say it. And there we would sit around with my friends and compare our romantic messages one after the other. Now there's BBM. It's like you're on a chat-room 24/7. Of course you've got the heart emoticon and the hug emoticon and the kiss emoticon but that just means that they are finding new ways for us to write less and less.
I guess what I'm trying to say is --technology killed romance. And if we don't try to revive it, we're gonna forget it even existed. So I'm just gonna throw this out there: write a letter to someone you love and make them feel that special excitement of receiving it, and opening it, and discovering the words line after line and then keeping it safe somewhere for years to come. Not in a folder with a blue label in their gmail inbox.
You're right, maybe technology killed the charm of romance. But, by on the other hand, at the present time we have a powerful tools for engage lovers.
ReplyDeleteLa tecnología ha venido para quedarse. Eso es un hecho. Then, we can convert that quagmire.
Last time I've handwritten any letter was for a lost lover (last spring). Never mind. I wrote it and then scaned the paper with my computer. My only solution was to send a pdf via email. But that ida didn't work.
A pesar de todo, sigo creyendo que detrás de la tecnolgía estamos los seres humanos. Si olvidamos eso, estaremos perdidos para siempre.