I know it sounds trivial, with all the world on the brink of many disasters, but I’m worried about my son’s romantic life.
And it’s not just my son’s romantic life. I’m concerned about the romantic life of all people raised in the computer age who are more comfortable with computers and social media than with real, flesh-and-blood people.
I was raised in the 1960s, so I learned how to actually speak to people face-to-face. And when I tried to ask a girl out, it wasn’t considered stalking, or sexist, or creepy. It was the way you get to meet someone.
But our culture sees people, and relationships, differently now. The computer has become an interface through which people now communicate. People identify with one another through video games, avatars, and FB profiles. They take selfies of everything, since nothing is real until it is shared with all one’s social media “friends”. Their social reality is now inextricably linked to the Internet. Lost in this transformation is the human-to-human connection, without the computer.
As a result, texting, for example, is often preferred to speaking on the phone. People trying to connect with someone else will spend hours slowly texting back and forth. The ability to edit one’s comments before sending is something you can’t do when you are talking to a person live. And this has made live conversation feel uncomfortable. It’s feels safer hiding behind a cellphone or laptop than meeting a person in real life.
Of course, when people finally do meet and agree to go out to dinner, (it’s not a “date”, since that is too intense), they both can’t stop checking their cellphones. If he tries to make a move after dinner, it could be considered sexual harassment, so he better watch out.
During dinner, they will probably have to get straight what their sexual identities and preferences are. For example, they probably need to discuss whether they both agree that they don’t know what a woman is. They also need to reveal past, and possibly present, STDs and what to do in the case of a pregnancy, which is now an issue in some states.
Most likely, they will have already made sure that they both were of the same views on Trump, one way or another. They might as well also talk about vaccines, immigration, free speech, critical race theory, climate change, environmental destruction and the pending extinction event, and the war in Ukraine.
And that’s if they stick to only discussing current events!
So what’s happening is that the world is crumbling around people who are addicted to the Internet and have lost human contact. Worse than that, the lockdowns and isolation from the pandemic have caused a mental health crises fueled, in part, by loneliness.
It’s hard to make love over Zoom. People will try it, of course. But it’s masturbation, not sex. It is training for having sex with sexbots, which are getting increasingly realistic and are in increasing demand by people who have learned to masturbate with computers.
Naturally, when we come to rely on a machine and artificial intelligence, we become part machine, and our thinking becomes more artificial. We are becoming the robots we are creating to replace us.
How do you meet a robot to ask them out? That’s the problem single people face today.
But they have to work it out, somehow. Someone has got to run things in the future, and if we don’t have people falling in love and getting into a relationship so they can have children who can grow up to become tomorrow’s workers, then who will take care of all of us when we are in the nursing home waiting for our ice cream and bed pan to be changed?
Perhaps what’s needed is a new way to make babies. I’m sure that, with the way genetic engineering and fertility medicine are going, it won’t be long until it’s common for people to buy ready-made embryos. They will be ready for implantation, certified genetic-disease-free, and “enhanced” with new-and-improved, super-powered genes to make the future person taller, stronger, and more reliable. Clothing sold separately.
Until then, we will still need to rely on people to come up with the latest generation of kids to operate the machines of the future. Unless, of course, the machines of the future can operate themselves. In which case, we might not need all those kids, after all.
Overpopulation is the problem everywhere. At one time, people were needed to get things done. We needed people to farm the fields, serve in the wars, and provide physical and mental labor. But if we can do that with machines and artificial intelligence, we no longer need humans.
In fact, our culture has come to hate humans for all the harms done to the planet and its precious environments, and for the harms done to one another. Knowledge of these things creates misanthropy, which results is self-hate, since we compose that humanity.
So add misanthropy and self-hate to the mix of global catastrophe and apply that to the mind, and see if you can go and get a date for tonight.
How can you find love in a world of hate, chaos, pain, and fear; in a world where you see everyone as a potential stalker, serial killer, or rapist; in a world where you need to wear masks and “social distance” from others so they don’t make you sick; in a world where you can be cancelled for not using the right pronoun for someone with a gender identity issue, or for expressing a politically-incorrect opinion.
I don’t know how to find love under these trying social conditions. I don’t think the culture cares if people find love or not. Population control is a global concern, and love makes babies, so the less human love the better for the planet.
Is love outdated? You don’t need love for sex and making babies. Why bother with love at all?
I’d love to tell my wonderful and eligible son that I’ve found the right woman for him. He and tens of millions of other single people are having trouble finding the right person with whom to share a life. It’s something humans do, and it’s based on love. It gives people children and a commitment to the future. It makes it possible to get through the pain and suffering by balancing it with goodness. Love is a peacemaker, and an antidote to hate. Love is what keeps everything from falling apart. It creates social cohesion and stability by creating families. It is life affirming.
Love is the answer, as naive and cliche as that sounds. If not for love, what will balance all the hate?
P.S. If you are a parent with an awesome daughter looking for a wonderful man, look me up. I’ll let my son know. Email me at FindMySonAWife @ Gmail.com.