PlanJam!From your screen to the scene

Last week, I was flipping through channels and I came upon this infomercial for this new type of equipment that allows you to create music. After the creator showed the well-versed host what the average person could do, she said excitedly, “Wow, instant gratification to creativity.”

That comment gave me a jolt and I wondered why someone would want creativity to be instant. Isn’t the process of creativity; the inspiration, the vision, the conception all a part of the journey? Then I thought about the current status of relationships and how the majority of them were probably born from instant gratification.

We’ve created a world of microwavable relationships and dating. We have speed dating, online dating, and even digital dating which seems to be taking the place of regular dating. Text messaging, video chats and webcams are taking the place of phone calls, love letters and old fashion flirting.

I love technology and I have to admit some of these are very exciting. I shy away from online dating services, but recently one of my favorite magazines had a special article that featured 100 eligible men who were looking for love and if you wanted more information you could check out the magazine’s website. On the site, were professionally posed photographs of these men along with personal profiles, stats and an answer to the question, “What was your most romantic date” along with their email addresses.

For almost two hours, I spent time on the site looking at the pictures, reading the profiles and even taking the short quiz that would show me my matches. It only came up with 3, (yikes) but that requires a whole other subject for a different article. I had to admit that it was fun but after the initial gratification, the moment was gone and I felt a little deflated.

I think ‘instant’ is taking the romance out of relationships. I’m not even talking about when our parents used to court each other. If you look back to only five years ago to your friends who are still in long relationships, who are married or the way you used to date back then.

I envy that time and I envy them. Is this what we have to look forward to…where the criteria for really getting to know someone will be the key words on a computer (dark hair, 30’s, love’s children, non-smoker) instead of a face-to-face over coffee? Will old-fashion romance be taken over by techno-intimacy?