Chat

There are lots of people I like on the various "chat" channels tonight. I'm supposed to be working but the little "bing!" of the Gmail chat, and the wee "click" of the Facebook chat are unstoppable. I think to myself: why are these people all alone in front of the computers? Most of them know each other. They could be having a grand party. Then I think: why need they have a grand party when they have chat?

Anyway, it would make for a messy party. On my Gmail chat I'm currently hosting the members of two couples that split up over the past 48 hours. Don't you know the feeling? Your ex-lover's name comes up and you know that with just one double click you can spin the lost relationship into new depths of disaster. Then, suddenly, the name of a previous ex-lover pops up beneath that of the first one. the names shift places, they nestle back to back, You wonder: what are the gods of chat trying to convey?

Currently on my Gmail chat list there's one proper ex and another girl with whom I once had a wonderful romantic adventure. Pretty cool. Facebook? only that same romantic adventure girl, nothing heavy duty. but wait! everyone on my facebook chat list is a woman except one man and he's gay. I count how many of them I find attractive and arrive at about 80%, leave the two married women out, and you still have a lot of potential romance and sexual tension in my lonesome nocturnal room.

Girls look surprisingly good in two dimentions. I go to my friends list to rate the top three loveliest profile photos. It is a beauty peagent like no other. The swimsuit bit and the evening gown bit are mixed, as every contestant is free to choose her attire freely. Please, my friends, I do not masturbate to Facebook, but I am fascinated by the state of romance today. This is where it begins - with little flirts and xx's, this is where it ends, with names resting back to back, like corpses in one of those multi-level burial plots they now offer in Israel for lack of land. Chat is both the maternity ward and cemetary of post-modern love, it's its inferno, purgatory and paradisio.

Well, not quite. You really have to meet face to face for paradisio. At least that.