Friday, March 2, 2012

Are you already thinking about (virtual) love?


Back in the 80’s we had in Cuba a little book inherited from the Soviets (surprise, surprise) called “Are you already thinking about love?” (actually it should have been called “Are you already thinking about getting laid?” but let’s not go through that now) Few of us actually managed to read it but our bigger brothers tortured us with its existence. The descriptions of corporal changes to come and the drawings of men and women in bold positions made of this little book a bestseller in these communist prairies.

I don’t know if it’s still published or if it has the same effect it used to have in teenagers, even though I doubt it (in this digital era those kids have seen a lot already). But what I do know is that, in case of its ongoing publication, a new chapter should be added about that new battlefield of Cupid called “the Cyberspace”.

At some moment it got into our lives. Before, you could ask a couple where they have met and they answered things like “At the movies”, “At Coppelia” (the biggest ice cream shop in the country, thus the most popular place in the island) or even (very popular in the 70’s and 80’s) “I called a wrong number and we stayed talking”. Now it’s not weird to find answers like “We met at the chat” or “Facebook suggested him as a friend”. And that’s fine: it’s always good the increase of places to nurture love. What’s the matter if there are movies, ice creams or “I like it” buttons involved? But careful: even though the virtual area is special in so many ways, it has intrinsic characteristics that we should know in order of not falling in its traps.

It all begins one day in front of a computer connected to the Internet. You might be surprised but such computers are actually less than 2 percent of the total computers in the country (you were thinking about moving to Cuba? Well, you can start to forget it now). One day that we go to school to make a report or to a friend’s house to check our mail. Contrary to the normal places of finding love already seen, in order to provoke a good first impression, at the chat it doesn’t matter if your shoes are good or even if you have washed your face (It sounds good, right? Chat 1 – Coppelia 0).

All the sudden someone (for the pedagogical effects of this post we’ll call him Andrés82, but it could be Alina65, Yuri26 or whatever) “clicks” on you and surprises you with a warm “hi” (90% of the times with a little “h”). Instantly – don’t try to fool yourselves – we add ideal characteristics to Andrés82 only for having read one single word coming from his mouth (or keyboard). He’s young, gorgeous, athletic, not exaggeratedly strong, but not skinny either. He has light eyes and he wears a 45 in shoes (and we all know what that means). He wears glasses, but only for reading and that makes him seem like an intellectual. He has a love past, of course (if he hadn’t that would be weird and pathetic), but it’s not important. Nothing he can’t get over…with you. Andrés82, a.k.a THE IDEAL MAN.

This perfect landscape becomes quickly cloudy. Andrés82 lives with eight other people, he has frequent appointment with the ophthalmologist because he’s losing sight and he makes a spelling mistake every three other words. But still – don’t fool yourselves, we‘re optimistic by nature – we ignore all that and try to focus in the positive things. And the fact is that the euphemism is loose over the Internet. Nobody is black anymore, now they are “light brown”; fat people are substituted by “nor either fat or thin” and ugly define themselves as “with a special face”. I say all the time I’m “slim”. Starting today I will go with “thin”. (This blog is starting to have a positive effect on me; bravo).

And then, after some time of banal conversation in which Andrés (uff, he already lost the last name, we’re getting closer) talks to you about his family, the weather and his passion for abstract painting, one of the two of you pops up the question that would change forever the course of your relationship: “hey, do u have a pic?”. And then, after an exchange and download of files and a flattering comment by Andrés82 about how good you look in your picture, you find yourself face to face with the so long awaited image of the man of your dreams.

Ok, this is an awkward moment. Andrés82 is nothing like you imagined. And he is in a good picture (because we all send our best pics; God bless digital cameras: we erase the photos we don’t like, we keep the good ones and we trick ourselves into thinking we look like that). In that moment you remember he told you his female friends tell him he’s good looking. What kind of friends are those?

But then you remember you’re not perfect either, that your solitude is big and that streets are hard. This guy likes abstract painting, how bad can he be? And suddenly you realize that to his “What do u think of the pic? If you don’t like it, just say it” you’re answering with a “You’re just as I imagined”. That – don’t try to fool yourselves – it’s a fat lie.

And all the sudden, you decide to know each other personally: he’s not far, in the same Vedado (if he were a hunk, he would be in another continent). But not Andrés82, he is right there, so you two decide not to delay any more the moment of knowing each other and choose a spot to do it, generally in the intermediate distance between you two and with a movie theater, a park or a school as a point of near reference. You wait impatient, asking yourself about your clothes and your hair, when all the sudden Andrés82 appears. He’s 1.52, how could he forget to mention that!!!! And he’s even worse than in the picture because he has been working all day long and he’s sweated. Suddenly, your hair or your clothes are no longer an issue: you feel you’re Brad Pitt.

It’s time for this to end”, you say to yourself. But you have been well-raised and you know you can’t just say it out loud just like that. So you two sit in a bench and you pray in secret for no familiar faces to pass nearby. You speak of banal subjects such as his family, the weather, his passion for abstract painting… Fuck abstract painting, that’s the reason you’re sitting there with that elf! Finally, you look at your watch and say that your aunt is waiting for you, your cat hasn’t eaten and that you have a lot to translate. He, used to it, nods and says it was a pleasure to meet you.

In that moment, you can’t help to feel a little tenderness for Andrés82. After all, he’s not bad. And it’s not his fault if he’s far from being perfect physically. Probably he has more important virtues. And then you remember when you were yourself Andrés82 for some other guy who considered himself as better than you are and said to you the same phrases you just said to this one. And you think of your last partner, and how when you two were together the physical factor was never an issue because there was something else. And then you feel bad, lonely and pathetic. That’s because you didn’t know the rules of virtual love and you would have wanted that a goddam book would have taught them to you when you were a teenager. But it didn’t happen.

Of course, it’s not always like that. I imagine that there are people who get married and live many years alongside someone who met at the web. I like to think that there would be little kids shouting that their parents fell in love in the cyberspace and they lived happily ever after.

But those would never be us (or at least not me). So, after spending some days avoiding computers to forget the incident, one day we go back to our school or to a friend’s house, and after making the report or checking our mail, we open the chat and wait patiently for someone to tell us “hi” with a little “h” to think for a minute – don’t try to fool yourselves – that we’ve found the right person. And then, it all begins again.

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