Computer Love
Music While You Meditate
Can it really ever happen to me? Computer love. Since my freshmen year of college I have used the internet to do research, shop, listen to music, play games, and communicate with people literally all over the world. It's said that now you can find anything your heart desires on the World Wide Web - cars, houses, clothes, books, vacation packages, drugs, sandwiches with the Virgin Mary in them, anything - but the question I have pondered since my freshmen year of college is if one can truly find love.
The net is filled with chat rooms, message boards and dating sites specifically designed for people who are looking for someone on the information super highway that they haven't or can't come across just walking down the street. Have I done my share of meeting and greeting with the hope that one would become a dear friend or lover? Of course I have, maybe even more than my fair share. To date, none of those dates have panned out - on the romantic front anyway. Several guys, I met initially with the hopes of romance, have become good friends though. Most of the other encounters I have tried to forget.
I know three black gay couples who have met in chat rooms or via internet personal ads. Each of these couples have been together at least four years. I've yet to run across any couples recently who've established and maintained a healthy, real, growing relationship. One of those couples is my mentor and his partner. They have been together for five years and have lived with each other in upstate New York for the last three. When I look at their relationship I see a healthy representation of a loving black man to man relationship that I would use as a model for whatever relationship I'd build with someone.
I think the internet however was a different place four years ago. Today, it often seems those lurking on the net are looking for quick, casual sex, merely a band-aid put on the real problem that many of these men face; their loneliness. They are searching for someone to make them feel good for a couple of hours and when that time is up they find themselves alone again. Others are on the net seeking sex for pure recreation, others for validation. There are a number of reasons I suppose.
But every now and then I still find myself on the net searching, thinking, wanting to believe that there is someone out there sitting at his computer searching, thinking and wanting to believe too. Hell, I haven't had any luck finding a mate in any traditional venues yet, so computer love, maybe it could happen to me.
Can it really ever happen to me? Computer love. Since my freshmen year of college I have used the internet to do research, shop, listen to music, play games, and communicate with people literally all over the world. It's said that now you can find anything your heart desires on the World Wide Web - cars, houses, clothes, books, vacation packages, drugs, sandwiches with the Virgin Mary in them, anything - but the question I have pondered since my freshmen year of college is if one can truly find love.
The net is filled with chat rooms, message boards and dating sites specifically designed for people who are looking for someone on the information super highway that they haven't or can't come across just walking down the street. Have I done my share of meeting and greeting with the hope that one would become a dear friend or lover? Of course I have, maybe even more than my fair share. To date, none of those dates have panned out - on the romantic front anyway. Several guys, I met initially with the hopes of romance, have become good friends though. Most of the other encounters I have tried to forget.
I know three black gay couples who have met in chat rooms or via internet personal ads. Each of these couples have been together at least four years. I've yet to run across any couples recently who've established and maintained a healthy, real, growing relationship. One of those couples is my mentor and his partner. They have been together for five years and have lived with each other in upstate New York for the last three. When I look at their relationship I see a healthy representation of a loving black man to man relationship that I would use as a model for whatever relationship I'd build with someone.
I think the internet however was a different place four years ago. Today, it often seems those lurking on the net are looking for quick, casual sex, merely a band-aid put on the real problem that many of these men face; their loneliness. They are searching for someone to make them feel good for a couple of hours and when that time is up they find themselves alone again. Others are on the net seeking sex for pure recreation, others for validation. There are a number of reasons I suppose.
But every now and then I still find myself on the net searching, thinking, wanting to believe that there is someone out there sitting at his computer searching, thinking and wanting to believe too. Hell, I haven't had any luck finding a mate in any traditional venues yet, so computer love, maybe it could happen to me.
posted by ClayStarr at 1:18 AM
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