Unfaithful Thoughts, or a Case of Technology Nurturing Infidelity?

Last week I logged into my computer, with Yahoo Messenger tagging nicely along, thankyou. Within minutes, a friend whom I had not seen for a while was buzzing me. This would not have been news were it not for the fact that the buzzer was one of the female persuasion;-)

I first met her in Guinea-Conakry, West Africa, for a work-related conference in November 2004, and was immediately infatuated. Through the three days I was in the country, infatuation moved to great admiration for her intellect and her striking, good looks.

So we got to chatting on Yahoo Messenger and she asked me whether I was married. “No”, I wrote, ‘but I have a girlfriend”. I then asked her why such a really pretty girl like her was doing still not hooked. She claimed she was waiting for me…to get married! She’s a tough cookie, and I am sure she was saying this tongue-in-cheek, but how, that for that split moment, having seen the latest really gorgeous picture of her, and these thoughts, I wished I could tell I wanted her so badly.

There was just a catch, which was no catch, upon reflection: I had told her spontaneously she was “tres belle!”, or very pretty, and that I have a girlfriend. There was no way I was going to say anything sillier from there on.

I emailed her shortly after to renew acquaintance; I haven’t seen her online for a while, but she has said she’d love to come to Ghana – only if I invite her. I have done so, and hope to see her at the end of the year when she’s less busy.

All this brings into sharp relief, in my view, how technology has acted as a double-edged sword of doing the proverbial Nokia thing of “connecting people”, whilst contemporaneously dividing them. Connecting, because of the opportunities of being able to “talk” in real-time, yet paradoxically dividing because of its more nebulous ability to divide emotional loyalties of those living in the “here” world and shifting it to those in the “there” world—whether in the next town, city, or country. When it affects couples or partners in the “here” world, it becomes all the more testing.

However, it’s certainly here to stay--and to tell you the truth: I'm all for it!!

have a good weekend!

a terrible combination of virus-infected computers at work, coupled with badly-established internal networking in work computers, as well as a slightly busier period has resulted in the 14-day absence here...