Modern Day Courting In The City That Never Meets

I’ve recently come to the realization that over the past decade, single New Yorkers have truly evolved—I think.

In New York City, where busy schedules and overwhelming workloads may challenge one’s ability for true intimacy, we relationship savvy New Yorkers have skillfully learned to overcome this challenge by altering the very notion of intimacy itself. Whereas traditional courting involves love letters, pebbles on windows (does that really happen?), pulling out chairs, and an earnest effort to really learn about someone, modern day courting eschews all of these antiquated inconveniences and replaces them instead with frequent and effortless interactions that involve an abundance of exchanges…with not very much being exchanged at all.

We’ve all had it in some form or another: e-mail, text message, IM. Sometimes these modes of communication supplement intimate meaningful interactions, while other times, we fall into the unfortunate but all too easy trap of modern day dating devices.

Enter the electronic relationship.

How do you know if you’re in one? That’s usually pretty easy. Perhaps this guy e-mails you every morning asking you about your day, or one hour past your morning coffee you find yourself g-chatting with him at work and the conversation continues on and off for the majority of the afternoon. It’s a flirty exchange, you’ll give it that much, but there are no expectations. The nature of the relationship lies in the very fact that it flourishes in the online world and not necessarily anywhere else. In fact, if this guy actually picked up a phone and dialed your number, you would be happy, of course, but you would also be taken aback. Even you know that a phone call requires effort, clicking a name on g-chat--well--it doesn’t. That's the beauty of the relationship--and its downfall.

On one hand, you and this guy have discussed a lot with one another, bringing up topics that you probably would not have been comfortable sharing in person this early in the game. On the other hand, you have also established a false sense of connection, because you don’t really know this guy, right? I mean, it’s not a real relationship if it exists only in cyberspace. (Is it?)

One of my friends is involved in a rather exhausting string of e-mails with a guy she has actually gone on a couple of dates with in the past. Due to conflicting schedules, they were not able to see one another for a month, and now their relationship has--rather unfortunately--fallen into the “electronic zone.” And trust me, if you think that you and a potential love interest are stuck in the “friend zone,” the electronic zone is far worse. At least in the friend zone you still maintain some sort of in-person interaction. In the electronic zone, you find yourself getting overly excited when you see their name appear in your g-chat buddy list! (Ladies, don’t even tell me you haven’t felt it.)

And then there is the scheming, sneaky, “I-promise-I’ll-make-you-regret-this” cousin to the online relationship. Enter the text message relationship. While this relationship can begin at any time, it seems to have a knack for establishing itself one late Saturday night when you’ve had a bit too much to drink and need some instant gratification flirting. The relationship inevitably continues the following weekend, when you realize that your text message relationship makes communication so easy and inconsequential that it has given you an outlet to say things that you should probably just keep to yourself. Thankfully, with drunk text messaging firmly established as a modern day cultural norm, you can just laugh about your offhand remarks the next day and blame it on the alcohol, thereby making the text message relationship enticing, enduring (at least for a while), and, best of all, completely noncommittal.

Electronic dating is so popular because it guarantees us easy access to the person of our non-affection, or shall we say “pseudo-affection.” Just a few punches on the keyboard (or keypad) and you’ve communicated exactly what you wanted to say without having any real interaction at all. But is that always a good thing? When you give a guy your number, does he choose to call you when he wants to make a plan, or is the first exchange via text message? And aren’t there any implications in this?

On the flip side of things, there are some single New Yorkers (insert "ray of hope" here) who have adapted to the world of electronic dating and casual interactions by refusing to adapt to it at all, which makes me realize that when it comes to modern day dating, "evolution" cannot necessarily be equated with "progress."

After all, there are still guys who pick up the phone, pull out chairs, and yes...even write love letters.

Wait, hold on a sec…

Did I just hear a pebble hit my window?