Yamamoto: Story 2 (Sam Lindsey)

Date:5/9/2018
Author: Sam Lindsey
Assignment: Post #10, Yamamoto: Story 2

My personal experience with virtual romance is not quite the typical one. I've never really been in a "virtual romance", but I have participated in a few of the services just to see what they are like. Tinder wasn't even really a thing until a few years ago and just how popular it's gotten is honestly a little scary. I made an account this past year just to see what all the fuss was about and discovered that I don't really enjoy their whole system. They are essentially providing relationships on purely based on first appearance factors, which is okay to an extent, but takes a lot of what I believe a relationship should be out of the equation. Getting to know a person based on qualities other than physical attraction should be what we are shooting for. That doesn't mean you have to begin a relationship based on these factors alone, I think beginning a relationship purely on attraction is fine, but it shouldn't stay that way as you progress through the relationship. Looks change, personality does not. 

One of the big problems I have with any relationship that has a virtual interface (which almost, if not all, do) is the miscommunications and misunderstandings that occur with these interfaces. In particular, the loss of facial expressions and one-one conversations have made texting a troubling form of relationship communication for me. This is best expressed through a Key and Peele skit in which each text is being interpreted differently based on inferred tones of voice that may or may not be there at all. It's much easier to talk to someone about a relationship one-one where they have to respond on the spot and can see and hear what you're feeling as opposed to sending a five page long text describing the ways you feel, which is often read in the wrong way.



The "historical event" that comes to mind most recently is the cat fishing story of Notre Dame quarterback Manti Te'o. Te'o was a character of empathy and drew a lot of fans based on the stories of his personal problems and tragic accidents (breakups and something else) with his girlfriend.... who we soon found out was actually nonexistent.... Te'o was the figure that sparked the whole catfishing debate. It had been happening for such a long time that it was scary to think of who, or what, is on the other side of that text or message.

Another event, or sort of relevant thing, was the many occurrences of older adults scamming children into coming over to their house or meeting in person that ultimately would lead to some really bad situations... The ability to hide one's identity is a really, really scary thing. And these little kids don't know that anyone would lie to them and end up falling into these sorts of traps.

Finally, a last event that I remember happening recently is the the weird proliferation of all sorts of dating apps... Again, not really anything specifically, just one day there was none and today they seem to be everywhere! It's troubling to me to just think of the large pool of potential relationships a person may miss out on given their preferences to not take place in the new and coming craze of online dating....