I fancy myself a Neo-Luddite. I don’t like new technologies. They bore me, and I think that our society’s increasing reliance on computers and its obsession with cyber-networking is making us a stupid bunch of loners. We are becoming a race of pasty, antisocial, uncultured dipshits. We think it’s perfectly acceptable to speak wholly in acronyms and emoticons. We think LOL Cats are clever. It’s beyond pathetic.
Ironically, then, I find myself in a relationship with an alpha computer geek. Picture Boo Radley with a MacBook permanently attached to his lap. Even though we’re shacking up together, I cannot remember the last time the two of us had a face-to-face conversation. If I want to get his attention, it’s often more efficacious to IM him than to call out across the living room and hope he looks up from the hypnotic glow of his Apple Mistress.
I’ve tried confronting him about his computer addiction, but he’s usually too busy Twittering or reading his RSS feed to listen. I intimated on several occasions that, if Apple engineers ever figure out a way to install a vagina port on their laptops, he will never again have use for a carbon-based girlfriend. He didn’t deny that this would be the case.
Now, I’ve dated coke-heads, potheads, and alcoholics before, but none of those addictions seemed as severe and devastating as this boy’s computer addiction. I mean, even through their substance-induced hazes, my ex-boyfriends still managed to communicate with me in person. Sure, their words were slurred and incoherent, but at least they made an effort.
I am officially a computer widow. My boyfriend is only alive in a technical and physiological sense. Emotionally and mentally, he died long ago. Probably around the time Apple released Mac OS X v10.2. Since then, he has become a husk of a person, just a human-shaped vessel to house Apple minutiae.
And just in case he ever finds this blog, reads it, and demands answers, I suppose I should explain myself:
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