how technology is changing the way we date

And I thought the time of MIRC was rough. That awful year in 1999 when I'd wait for dial-up internet connection (we all knew the sound it made by heart) and join these chat rooms with weird names like "blue flower" and ask people "asl" because that was the "new" language, the internet language --asl standing for "age, sex, location" in case you forgot.

It was supposed to be cool. I remember I was 13, but always pretended I was 16, because that's how old the girls were in that movie "Clueless" and those girl were super cool.

But in those days --it was the easy stuff. Nothing like 2013. I can't even count the number of methods you have for tracking someone down now... Monitor their whereabouts, through Facebook pictures and trip-advisor reviews. Read what they read from what they share on twitter or their newsfeed. Listen to the same music through Spotify and FB, of course (basically with Facebook you can do everything but appear on their screen and jump them...)  But not just that... You can actually tell the number of hours they waste in the day by tracking their "last seen on" update on whatsapp. Now how creepy is that?

So, to sum it up --not only are you supposed to watch your behavior when you're out on a date or on the occasional phone call, but you also have to watch yourself when you're talking to friends on Whatsapp (what if you don't want him to know you're awake? No seriously?) or when you're liking something because FB will record the exact time you did it (why? who cares if I liked it a 1:46PM?)... And you now have to make sure every picture everyone has ever taken of you looks amazing because you never know what will end up on Facebook... It's just so much to think about! I mean, there was this guy who liked every Instagram picture anyone I knew ever posted, and we all thought "boy this guy has a lot of time on his hands" --so yeah, I'd say people notice and judge you for your social-network behavior too. Funny, no?

What is crazier? The other day I got a Facebook inbox-message from a guy I was newly seeing and imagine my surprise when at the top of that message, there appeared a message I wrote, wait for it... on March 27th 2007, at 8:22pm --basically when I was 22 years old and still living in Manhattan, I apparently had wrote him a message that went unanswered. Did I remember ever writing that? No. Did he remember ever reading it? No! Yet Facebook did a great job reminding us, and sort of helping him get points 6 years later... Do you know how embarrassing it is to re-read something you wrote 6 years ago?

But then there are the good thing about all this technology. Like how easier it makes it for my two friends who are crazy about each other but living in different countries --at least, they have Viber. And Skype. And Facetime. They can send each other videos and audio-notes on Whatsapp. They can somehow manage to share their days with each other, as much as technology permits them to.

In 1949, my grandparents met at a summer hotel in Lebanon. But after the summer, my grandfather returned to Cairo and my grandmother to Beirut. For seven years, they exchanged letters. Sometimes, they would go months without any news from each other. Months. Not minutes or hours like we count them now. They had to wait for the mailman. How amazing is that? If my grandmother was here now, I'd love to ask her how she thinks all this technology would have affected her long-distance relationship with my grandfather.

Of course, whether we like it or not, it's happening. This new way of dating, of connecting with other human beings, there is nothing we can do to change it. Yet I feel lucky I had the chance of knowing a bit of both worlds. I'll have to remind myself to write my children letters one day, so they get to experience it too.

technology killed romance

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.