Does technology make us lazy about love?

After posting the other day I started thinking how technology has changed relationships and romance. I know we wouldn’t have made it through a five month stint apart without Skype. I could never have been one of those women during (what we call in Australia) World War One, who sat waiting for monthly letters from their boyfriends or husbands. I need much more immediate forms of communication.

Mero Budda says he hates Skype but I credit Skype with our marriage (Oh shit maybe that’s why he hates it?).

Anyone who has tried to Skype Nepal knows how frustrating it can be sitting, waiting for a call to connect, then finally… “Can you hear me? Can you see me? Hello, are you getting this? Is my text coming through? What about now? Now? Now?”

As annoying as it is the excitement when that grainy, lagging picture finally comes up and you see the face of someone who has put up with countless dropped calls and static ridden lines just so they can have a few minutes talking to you is always worth it. I think I speak for a lot of long distance couples when I say Skype is one of the things that gets you through the times apart.

But it isn’t just modern couples using technology to foster romance. I know two women in arranged marriages who used the internet to check out the partners put forward by their parents. Both of these women were given options of Nepali men studying abroad and both engaged in some cyber stalking, using Facebook, to give the guys the once over.Then they both used Skype for a number of cyber dates before consenting to the match. Without the internet these women may have had to choose a husband purely on their parents recommendation.

So I recognize that technology is making it easier but is easier better in the long run?

My sister and I had a discussion the other day about what is an acceptable amount of time for a guy to wait before he sends you a text after he gets your number. I maintain if he doesn’t text in 24hrs he is too lazy / busy for me to consider him proper date material. My sister and plenty of my friends give a guy three days.

I think technology is making men romantically lazy and lowering women’s standards. We have already forgotten the days when a boy would need to be brave enough to call our home phone and ask whomever answered if they could speak to you... AND THEN be brave enough to ask you on the date. These days we are lucky to get a text saying : C U 2nite hu6? And we are meant to get excited by this!

Instead of sending flowers, now a guy just sends you a picture or flowers, or if he is really lazy, an emoticon of one. I remember telling my friend Mero Budda sends me a romantic text nearly every day (this was when we were dating, these days I am lucky if he wastes his credit to tell me important things). She looked at me like i found the Holy Grail of men. Are we seriously that love deprived that a few nice words tapped out while he waits for a tempo passes for romance?

I want real flowers, I want words written in pen or whispered in my ear, I want to go to a movie not watch one pirated from the net. Romance isn’t supposed to be easy. It is about effort and time and care. Call me selfish but now that my husband and I are in the same city I want some old fashioned love.