Issue 47 –
The Top Ten Challenges to Relationship:
Keeping Your Love Alive Amid Life’s Routines
Challenge 7 : Computers – The New Mystical Lover
There are many among us who cannot resist the glow of the computer screen or the lure of the Internet. There is so much to do, to see, and to learn. There is so much to explore. There is an endless opportunity for play. You plan to take a moment to check your E-mail or to reconcile your bank account and, five hours later, you drag yourself to bed, exhausted but happy, hardly remembering your partner’s name.
We have come to think of the computer as the new mystical lover, a seductive creature who, always awake and available, sings a siren song at all hours of the day and night.
Again, this is a question of linkage. No matter what you are working at, it’s good-bye to your partner as your primary linkage shifts to the computer. Once when we were speaking about this as having an almost addictive quality, a computer expert told us he had heard that when people work on computers their brains move into a very satisfying alpha rhythm that is literally addictive. We do not know whether or not this is true, but it certainly seems that way.
There are many levels to this new fatal attraction. Some people have an intermittent linkage problem that does not constantly detract from their relationship. When they are working on their computers, that is their primary linkage but they are capable of returning and connecting to their partners. There are others, however, where the connection to the computer, and to the things that they access through their computer, is truly the primary linkage in their lives.
To check this out, ask yourself where you have more fun, with your computer or with your partner.