THE ALMOST QUIRKS OF VIRTUAL LOVE

No bad breath!

No halitosis. Oops, i said that already.

Awesome, no? Well, I’m not finished yet. No acne. No unsightly pimples. No brown teeth. No long jagged fingernails and/or toenails with not meager an amount of debris underneath. No flappy flesh under the arms (right now, I’m recalling flappy bird with a smile), no slack belly, no body odour, no feet smell as a result of escape from a prison shoe, no dirty collars, no smelly weaves. Are you cringing yet? Hold on.

No slimy unnameable orange-brown substance in the ear. No uncombed hair. No unwashed clothing that gives off the smell of, well, something that is a cross between expired sweat and something sour. No gruesome scar on the right thigh. No obsession with nose picking. No saliva spray during vocal speech.Okay. i think i made my point . I’ll stop with the NOs now.

Em, what am i even saying? Oh, yes. The topic is : the almost quirks of virtual love. I think that ‘the beauty of virtual love’ would have been a better topic. Still, I've already used the former. So, why not?

I’d like to talk about the world we live in online. Now, this world lacks a number of things the real world possesses; which might be considered a good thing. All our superficial turn offs dissolve and we are left with pixels and text. We are left with minds.

Let me explain a little. Apart from cases where people upload particularly graphic pictures that might indeed turn you who are on the other side of the screen off, there is a quality of sameness to everyone you meet online; on the internet. Those imperfections which serve as a reminder of the physical human are almost totally wiped out and we are left, with minds. We are blinded to the outward and have a huge depth of perception of the inward. Well, usually. While the differences in physical states and mannerisms are being eliminated, while two people who, in real life, would never even have said ‘hi’, can strike up a very stimulating conversation online, we might want to see a few things. Maybe even ask a few questions. So, here goes.

What really is the glitter?

Yes, technology trends and high-rise, yes smart phones, smart computers, yes globalization. Yes. But, what is the underlying syndrome? Why do we have more networks (‘friends’) online? (Assuming you are like me who does, and with the exception your actual real life friends)

  This almost looks like an eye opener.

Have we been getting it all wrong? have our minds been so clouded with prejudices and convention,  that we have been missing in real life, some priceless acquaintance(s) due to the physical turn offs? -Due to some mediocre perceived ‘bad’ quality, that we might or might not possess ourselves?

I said earlier, about twice, that we are left with minds. And minds can be a turn off too. When you consider how a person reasons, the way he or she thinks, you can either be impressed, disgusted, indifferent or downright angry.

This leads me to a proposition. And i will use a practical example. A girl wants to get married to a prince, maybe she is a princess, maybe not. The point is, she has convinced herself that that is the kind of man she wants. Now she meets an actual prince, with all the groomed handsomeness and wealth and sophistication and manners and charming smile and etc. They fall in love and plan to live together forever. At first there is almost no change in the physic. Then comes Mr mind; that thinking faculty. That thought process, which can manifest in so many dynamic ways that everyone could even be called unstable. And she is thrown off balance, or the rug is roughly pulled out from underneath her.

My proposition is this. The world online provides an abstraction of things, and a separation of tasks which is not very unlike MVC's. We are presented with an almost uniform view and have solid exposure to the model. And models are the backbone. To expand, I’ll say the exterior is masked, thereby enabling the interior to show. This is good, almost…

Till we get back to the part where we are still ourselves and our minds are still blinded, and we do not want to marry a short man, date a fat girl or be friends with someone who is not particularly comely in our sight. The plane, where we are unwilling to face the unyielding fact that the perfection that fits our definition, is a mirage. That part where we fail to realize what a human being really is; which is his mind. About the body, well, i like the plastic surgeons. They can tell us quite a lot about the body. I rest now.

Disclaimer: This piece only covers those who are honest online. Here, i am not considering fake profiles, or pseudo people.

ps.: i stole these photos online. Hopefully, this is some sort of referencing.