The internet is sucking out the romance from life.
The internet yields anonymity. If you're lonely and you want to rent a film, you now do it online. If you want to buy a book, you'll do it online, and even more so if you want to buy a book and you're cheap, you'll get it from Ebay or Amazon marketplace. So why do we even need to leave the house. There is now no reason to. You do it all online, and believe me I've done it all online.
By doing this you'll never meet the likeminded shy girl at the big blockbuster, or better yet the local video shop. The boy who reads like crazy but just got over a bad relationship. The girl who makes a funny quip about the album you're buying, not because she likes/dislikes (well not totally) your tastes but because she likes your face.
That's why all the records shops have closed down, because YOU don't want the hassle of going into town, because you don't want the cool rocksteady person behind the counter to snigger at you for buying the new Kings Of Leon album 6 months after it came out. Where the boy behind you is doing the same thing. You're both not that into music, but you are into the romantic notion of the independent record shop, the second hand book store, the market, the local bakers.
Now I'm not saying the internet is the new television and getting Disposable Heroes of Hiphopritical by being a luddite saying that it feeds radiation (it doesn't) but we are missing some of the things we used to pride ourselves on. Humans communicate, connect and fall in love.
If you want to run through the pigeons in the park do it, because the girl/boy who went to the park to read Bukowski or Gore Vidal just might fall in love with you. Take off your earphones for one part of your journey. Smile at someone. Make their day, or let someone make yours. The next time you finish a book, go out and buy a tatty copy of something in a second hand book shop or a car boot fair. The one person who is thinking exactly the same thing as you, that you don't belong here, is looking for exactly the same thing. Romance.
I don't mean romance in a dinner and flowers way, more the romantic nature of life. The unknowing, the naivety, the unanswered questions. And if you are an internet dater, I have been, don't ask two many questions beforehand, before you meet. Meet, and ask the questions to their face.
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