source: xkcd.com
Women obsess. We obsess and over think and tweak out about small stuff sometimes and need to be reminded to calm down. We make things more difficult than they often times need be, and yes, we expect you to read our minds sometimes even though we give no indication as to what we are thinking or want. We also, on occasion, obsess about guys. I like to think I do it less than most, but Jeremy might disagree with me wholeheartedly.
At this point in time, I have more single friends than I have had in a long time. It’s fun. We see a lot of each other and we talk a lot more than we would were we all seeing someone. Inevitably though and more and more frequently, I feel, this talk turns to men and how my friends are looking for a normal guy who won’t cheat on them, doesn’t laze around smoking weed all day, has ambition, likes to laugh and also wants to have sex with them since the days are turning into weeks and months at this point.
Doesn’t seem like a lot to ask. And yet, the search has made many a sane woman go completely off her rocker.
And what’s more, this access to a million different types of technology is not helping. So, instead of thinking about a guy all day and wondering why he’s not calling or pursuing her, one friend can check his Facebook page seven times an hour. Another can email a guy ten times before lunch. Texting back and forth or sometimes just forth, forwarding on his email for dissection by friends …. the access to information brings the level of obsession through the roof.
But this has been covered. I admittedly saw He’s Just Not That Into You while stuck on a very long plane ride back from Prague. Disclaimer: the idea was it would be so bad that I would sleep, instead I was awake and forced to watch a terribly movie on a very tiny screen. But, I’m used to small screens at this point. My point being, Drew Barrymore’s character has a funny line about when you’re wondering if a guy is going to contact you, you have way too many places to check (email, myspace, facebook, voicemails on land or cell phones, text, IM ….)
What hasn’t been covered is what happens when the technology we so readily abuse ends up screwing us instead.
Exhibit A: I once dated a guy who didn’t want anyone to know we were dating. For almost three years, we dated secretly (yes, I have numerous issues stemming from this, but we’ll talk about that another time). Thinking I was emailing him, I sent on an email to a mutual friend. The cat was so out of the bag. What was funnier was my follow up email, pretending I had been kidding in the first.
Exhibit B: A friend, forgetting her crush’s email address, tried to select just his name from a list so she could continue their flirtation. Instead, she sent on their string of flirtatious emails to all of their mutual friends … one of whom was her brother.
Exhibit C: Another friend, thinking she was emailing someone on Facebook, posted private and intimate details on her boyfriend’s wall.
Exhibit D: Thinking she was texting someone else about breaking up with her boyfriend, a friend ended up sending the text to him instead. Interestingly enough, it made the whole break up a lot easier than she had anticipated.
Technology, you’re not helping. You’re making everything easier, more immediate, more accessible, and inevitably harder. Because you don’t take the giddy factor into the equation. Our minds are racing, we’re obsessing and over thinking and hoping … and only then we realize we hit the wrong button. The room for error is just wide enough to provide some disastrous results.
But of course, it all makes for a great story somewhere far enough down the line.
Posted by hesaidandshesaid 
