A very unlikely topic for David Brooks (sex and dating trends), in a very interesting Op-Ed. In it, he ponders the current technology-addled world of courtship and how it changes or threatens relationships. Specifically, he targets text-messaging as responsible for a drastic change in the way we communicate with partners:
The opportunity to contact many people at once seems to encourage compartmentalization, as people try to establish different kinds of romantic attachments with different people at the same time.
He takes examples of courtship from technology-free generations past and upholds them as somehow more “transcendent, spiritual,” and having certain guidelines or “scripts” to follow.
You would expect a dynamic society to come up with appropriate scripts. But technology has made this extremely difficult. Etiquette is all about obstacles and restraint. But technology, especially cellphone and texting technology, dissolves obstacles.
He concludes:
Today’s technology seems to threaten the sort of recurring and stable reciprocity that is the building block of trust.
With all due respect, and complete cognizance that this is, after all, an Op-Ed, I think Brooks ought to try dating by text message before making such harsh and general observations on it himself. I think he is missing the point that at a certain period in their lives, or for just certain individuals, people are always going to sleep around, date around, or continually search for quick, casual affairs rather than serious committed relationships. (Isn’t that what one’s twenties are supposedly good for?) This behavior will probably always exist and always has, even in the so-called more systematic days of dating, to the backdrop of “Bruce Springsteen love anthems” or under the guidelines of medieval chivalry. Isn’t text messaging actually creating a “script” for modern lovers, of a new code of courtship, rather than working outside the realms of all order whatsoever?
I also disagree with his theory that text-messaging creates an “atmosphere of general disenchantment.” Having been in flirtatious or even what might be described as “booty text-messaging” situations myself — with different people around the same time — to be quite frank, I found it pretty thrilling.
The atmosphere is fluid, like an eBay auction. This leads to a series of marketing strategies. You don’t want to appear too enthusiastic… You want to appear bulletproof as you move confidently through the transactions.
I smell something similar to Victorian courtship mores here. You don’t want to be too open about your emotions. You want to have a good dowry, and good looks. You’re up for auction, essentially, if you’re a woman. But you don’t want to look desperate.
Suitors now contact each other in an instantaneous, frictionless sphere separated from larger social institutions and commitments.
That lovers can interact outside of larger social institutions and commitments actually sounds pretty great if you ask me. To be freer, to be allowed to act more wholly oneself, more human, without as many pressures of society, will show generations of the future more what people are really like. It will show people’s potential lovers more who they are really like.
