Victoria Kludt

Love in times of networks Victoria Kludt

I have been writing this book in my head for many years. Although from my youth I had to adjust to growing up hand in hand with new technologies, it happens to me, as surely to you, that I find this way of meeting candidates through a cold cell phone screen somewhat artificial. This self-publishing as if we were show dogs in a skill contest seems superficial and far from real human contact. But unfortunately this fashion of blind dates through apps is here to stay. And I say unfortunately because this phenomenon brought about the loss of such beautiful attitudes that made the conquest a superb art. There are no longer any phone calls or brave gentlemen who, in 99% of cases when calling for the first time, his future father-in-law answered on the other end of the line. Those were brave men! Now everything is solved with less than 50 characters in which the majority are emojis. Have we reduced our feelings to yellow drawings? Are we minions? The chivalry of opening the car door has been lost, picking up a woman being punctual at the agreed time, the gallantry of "how beautiful you look in that dress", "that sweater looks very good on you". Now everything is "let's get laid", "we pay half and half". Not even a first kiss that tells us if there is a tiny little spark or not. Everything has become to have sex or not to have sex, because the question of being or not being is no longer investigated. And love? Where is there room for that deep and wonderful feeling that moves mountains and makes us nobler human beings?In this book, written by a young woman but now back with this app dating thing, I tell in a few stories, of mine, of friends, of friends´ friends, of events that I have been told. Anyway, I tell you stories about dating apps, as you can imagine, didn't have a happy ending. Although we could reflect on the idea of what a happy ending would be... but at this moment I am not going to do that kind of philosophical inquiry. I do not specify the authorship of these stories, that does not matter here. I want to preserve identities, including my own. Because the essence of this book is not the cheap gossip of knowing who´s the story is, but to be able to visualize how the common thread through each story is that love has become something so banal, like people We have become disposable like a plastic cup in a fast food place, like the anguish in front of our worst shadow - loneliness - emerges like a terrible monster that torments us at night as if we were still that tender, innocent child and cover with a blanket to feel safe. As adults, we desperately search for someone to calm that fear, to cover our emotional voids by assimilating the warmth of the blanket, because in the society of "everything for yesterday", in which time flies and there is no space to investigate deep within soul, just as we satisfy our physical hunger with an "order now" app, we also satisfy our emotional hunger with internet ringer applications. We put ourselves on sale in cybernetic gondolas, choosing our best profile photo with thousands of filters and we do not dare to be and be loved for who we really are. Because we have no idea who we really are, because instead of spending time with ourselves we distract ourselves with devices so that we do not find our own shadow, with our childhood pain to heal.