The Perils Of Technology (Beware The Facebook Zone)
As I peruse the interwebz looking for interesting and relevant content for my blog, I came across a video from a dating coach, Kezia Noble, who speaks to the issue of Facebook in the context of attraction and dating. She’s fundamentally correct about Facebook. This is especially true for the younger crowd, Kezia’s main focus. Mercifully, men over a certain age can plead ignorance regarding much of social media, especially Facebook. “I don’t do Facebook” is perfectly acceptable. Try that if you’re under 35 years old.
Note, I do have a Facebook account but it is not active and I’ve locked it down to friends and family only and I haven’t updated my timeline in almost a year. It could be more but I simply don’t log into Facebook anymore. Facebook is a stinking digital swamp for post-divorce singles unless updating family and close friends. Just for shits and giggles, Google up the term “Facebook divorce“.
Technology is a galaxy-sized mixed blessing when it comes to attraction and dating. The good things are obvious. It starts with online dating, yet another mixed blessing. Regardless, online dating is one way of contacting women. Texting is another good thing regarding efficient communication. Back in the day, we had land lines and answering machines. We also had public pay phones. That wasn’t so efficient but we made do with what we had.
Technology helps us communicate, this much is true. As social creatures, humans need to communicate. A quick text or a Skype video conversation can go a long way to reinforce social and romantic connections. With technology, we are never out of touch with each other, often regardless of geography. This is certainly a method of connection but it’s certainly not perfect.
It’s now time to talk about the cons of technology in the context of attraction and dating. The worst is that technology can be used as a shield. Texts can be ignored. Calls can be ignored. Skype can be ignored. The worst of it applies to online dating. Men send out messages and no responses are received. This is the catalog nature of online dating. It also strongly points to the failure of technology when attempting to connect individuals in hopes of meeting relationship goals.
What’s the ultimate end result of using technology to facilitate communication between the sexes? Scammers. These are the filth of the earth who are exploiting the need for human interaction in the nebulous world of online dating. Scamming can also be more passive. This is where a person merely seeks validation of desirability with no intention of meeting up in real life. Hell, the African scammers are at least direct in their efforts. The validation scammer is far more conniving and dishonest. Technology allows this to happen.
Let’s get back to Facebook. One of the central tenets in the pick up artistry realm is escalation. The man is the first to ask for the phone number. He is the first to declare (not ask!) the date. He is the first to go for the kiss. When a man asks for a phone number and her response is to go to Facebook, it’s a rejection, pure and simple. She’s using technology as an excuse to protect his feelings.
Once pushed into the Facebook moat, a supplicating simp will attempt to scale the castle walls with Facebook messages and updates. I roll my eye at this. It’s a sad place for a man to be. I’ve watched guys do this. In my past, I’ve done this but it was before Facebook and the landscape of social media.
For guys, the de-escalation into social media must be seen as a total rejection. His response must be that she’s done, she’s gone – never to be contacted again. This is how technology can help a man. It can be a means of gauging how much a woman is attracted to him. If she proffers up her Facebook account in lieu of a phone number, there’s simply not enough interest on her part.
For all post-divorce singles, I will re-iterate my advice – keep your online dating efforts in the background. Spend more time with Meetup.com or similar live events where singles actually see each other face to face, as how it must happen. Yes, it can be intimidating, but without guts, there is no glory.
There’s no small irony that I exploit technology ruthlessly to get these messages out. This is the reality on the ground for content creators like myself. Gutenberg was a good start. Data centers and blogging is a great leap forward (that’s a reference to the scumbag Mao) to reach so many more.
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The Private Man 
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Yessssss.
FB and other social media sites are fine, just make them a simple means of communication, or even entertainment, nothing more. The solution is don’t read much into it.
I like the comedian who explains how people feel like they are missing something if they see what others have. Like keeping up with the Jone’s – the entitlement mentality. And the bragging, and the stretching of reality.
The worst thing about electronic communication is the lack of any emotion or body language, so its all too easy to misread what the true meaning was. It can’t replace face to face interaction, or even a phone call.
One nice thing about social media is that it represents a middle ground between the “public” space and the “private” space and another avenue of approach. I recently met a woman at an academic conference at which I was very busy and distracted (I was working) and thus neglected to get her number during the event. I could have gotten it from any number of mutual acquaintances, but many people these days (myself included) look askance at a text or phone call from a strange number.
Instead, I looked her up on Facebook (through those same mutual acquaintances), friended her, and asked her out (which she accepted). Now, would it have been better if I’d gotten her number when I first met her and texted or called her? Sure! But these things happen, and after losing that connection, Facebook offered a better, more socially-acceptable way to regain it than would have existed pre-social-media.
Not two weeks later, the same thing happened in reverse; a woman I met at an (unrelated) convention DMed me on Twitter and dropped hints, as women will, that she would like me to ask her out. She could have gotten my number through a mutual acquaintance, but that would have seemed like a more aggressive move, and many women dislike appearing aggressive about pursuing a man. The existence of Twitter allowed her to be more natural and indirect about it.