The Internet is playing cupid.
Whether it is proposing, courting, fighting, making up or plain and simple rejection, more emotional drama and affection can be found between two email boxes, instant messengers or in chat rooms than in real life, these days.
I have been asked out to dinner and rejected invitations on Instant Messengers. I have had a long distance relationship where email was a choice method for staying in touch. I have flirted with acquaintances and spent hours upset when someone I cared for didn't email me back promptly.
Yes, it just seems like the way things are done in the digital age. And yes, I am not alone in sharing romance, digital style.
"It is easier asking a girl out on the Net, because it lessens the risk getting rejected. I did that with my girlfriend who worked with me, asking her out for the first time through an email, though I had many opportunities to do so in person. I think it also gave her some time to think about it before she just turned me down," says Pradeep Shetty, a software professional in Pune. Today, his love story continues through Yahoo Chat and messengers, even as he and his girlfriend work in the same office, without their office romance being discussed and dissected by co-workers.
The Net is also something that helps enhance a relationship, say most. Like Neha Maheshwari, a third-year engineering student who continuously uses it to NavinMail her boyfriend. "I just love leaving a lot of messages of little things that I would not remember when he calls. Like going to our favourite restaurant, or my semester results, or even just letting him know how many times in a day I was thinking of him. This is my equivalent of love notes that I would usually write to him."
Others, like Shirley and Derek Singh, also have a lot to thank the Net for. Like their wedding vows.
Says Shirley, "At 30, I was in hurry to settle down, and had friends and well-meaning relatives who kept insisting that I should meet him. The first email he sent made me laugh. He seemed intelligent, witty and interesting. The emails continued for over eight months before we finally met." And yes, they then lived happily ever after.
Currently settled in New Zealand, Shirley adds, "Despite the fact that I was in India and he was in New Zealand, and that we shared completely different interests, long emails helped." But the email that clinched the whole matter (and every romantic yet practical bone in her body) was a short supportive one. When worried about an event that she had organised, she got a quick reply that "told me to take it easy and wished me luck. I knew then that this would be the man I would spend my life with."
"The Net for us helped remove all the awkwardness that comes in an arranged marriage, especially since I came to India only four days before we got married," says Sachin Sheth, a chemical engineer who courted his wife online. "It was a task for me to get Aditi to log on because she was not really an Internet friendly person. But once she hooked, we sent each other mails, chatted, sent ecards, the works." What's more, now that Aditi is in India for three months, they plan to bear the agony of separation through MSN messengers and email.
Also keeping her relationship alive through the Net is 24-year-old Divya Khurana in Meerut, whose boyfriend is currently studying for his M.S in the US. "The Net-to-Net is the best thing to happen to us. It was awesome just listening to his voice. And without paying a single rupee for it. Otherwise, phone calls to the States are terribly expensive."
The edge of technology seems to add a more dewy look to those rose tinted glasses.
Ever tried the Net to fight and make up? 18-year-old Anuja Khanolkar did. "My boyfriend Vikram and I went out with his friends for the first time, but he just ignored me all the time. I was so mad that I could have wrung his neck. But since he was dropping me home first before he dropped the rest of his friends home, I just stewed in anger refusing to give his friends the pleasure of a public confrontation. The moment I got home, I logged on, ready to tell him off with my email. Then, before I could unleash my anger, my notifier told me that I had mail. He apologised, explained his actions and asked forgiveness. Instead of the fiery diatribe I'd planned, I sent him a simple note saying that I was hurt but he was forgiven. Face to face, we would probably have ripped each other apart, but email - with the distance of time and space -- helped us look at our feelings rationally."
For the same reason, however, the Net can be a cruel medium too. "Getting dumped by an email was the worst thing that happened to me. Yes, we met in a chat room, but I think she owed me at least a phone call," complains Gaurav Gurbaxani, bitterly. "Still, better late than never."
As for me, my social life has changed. My elder sister remarked, recently, that I had become an independent woman. "In my day, we'd waste hours waiting for a boy to call, but not you," she teased.
I agreed, setting my browser to alert me about new mail every ten minutes.
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