The Bitch of the 21st Century

From time to time readers I wonder, what the fuck does this all mean? Literally I exclaim this whilst looking in the mirror. I was talking to a friend today and she is re decorating her bedroom, and her main life altering problem to date is held in this sentence. ‘I have no idea what colour scheme I want!’ And I feel her pain, my problem is pretty much the same ‘I have no idea what kind of life I want.’ I have no idea what colour I want my sky to be, or my grass, or the hedges, or trees, or flowers. Do I even want hedges? This all got me thinking about this stage in my life. I literally feel like Jack sinking into the depths of the freezing cold ocean, because I was stupid enough to fall in love with an over sized woman who can’t move her arse 3 inches so we can both survive! But if there is one thing helping me in this life, it’s technology, in particular social networking, can you hear the sarcasm or should I make it more clear? Not only does it mean that future employers can check me out before they decline to offer me the job, but it also means that people I randomly meet not only have access to information about me, but also a million (exaggeration) different avenues of contact that I have no control over. And with Facebook’s new ‘seen’ on private messages, there is no longer the excuse ‘I didn’t see that message, how odd!’

Now if I want to meet the man of my dreams (with 40 acres of land, an old manor house and two very dead parents) I not only have to go out to the correct places, I also have to be available via Facebook, Snap chat, have invested in Whatsapp, be a user on Youtube, have a Twitter account, have set up a voice mail, and an email account. And that is excluding bog standard calling and text messaging. When I was 14 I loved it all! It meant I could carry on talking to the friends I’d seen from the hours of 9 till 3, until the hours of 10 or 11 at night without having to leave the comfort of my own home. However, all I had then was a Nokia 3310 and msn live.

At the ripe old age of 22, I am sick to death of it all, I wake up in the morning to be greeted by my phone that offers me different emails, messages, missed calls, voicemails, Whatsapps, Snapchats, and Facebook notifications. This is where my love life gets me down, and that is before I have even thought about breakfast and brushing my teeth.

I’ll give you an example:

My summer ball, pretty average, some ‘famous’ bloke singing for about 20 minutes, diving into the crowd and hitting the floor! Anyway, so I am daydreaming because it’s at least 1.30, the three glasses of wine I’ve sipped have been eradicated by the amount of dancing I’ve been able to accomplish and I am concentrating solely on the pain that is radiating from my feet. Beautiful shoes, gold, and sparkly. I am approached, (more like shoved), by a 6ft (5.8) boy, (I leave the word ‘man’ as I still don’t consider myself a woman. I just don’t know how I can be considered a woman when for 75% of my awake time I walk around in pyjamas, when that stops I’ll be a woman.)

‘Ever had any Irish in you?’

I was tired, I didn’t immediately get that it was a chat up line so I just thought that from my pale complexion and dark hair that he was questioning my heritage.

‘Why, yes I do. My mum and dad are both Irish’ (Slight lie, they have Irish parents.)

He wasn’t deterred by this, ‘That was a chat up line, but yeah I have Irish in me too.’ I being the child that I am thought of about three rude things that I could have replied, but silenced myself and let him talk.

‘So having a good night?’ He was shouting into my ear, but it deflected my attention from the pain pulsating through my toes. Anyway this is where the dating routines of the 1920’s, my mother’s generation, were completely lost. Instead of what’s your name?

‘Can I add you on Facebook? Put your name in there.’ He hands me his phone! Already modern technology is integrating its way into a situation that really has no need for it. Also due to the powers of 3G, in less than 10 seconds time I receive his friend request. To be honest, we could have then faced opposite directions and started private messaging each other, saves on oxygen.

But to be fair, due to modern technology my touch typing is flawless! The only time I get a little confused is when the inbuilt dictionary thinks it knows more about what I’m trying to say than I do! But that can be saved for another blog!

So we parted ways, I smiled, he smiled, all through emoticons and then I got home and slept.

The next evening I am surfing the news feed of Facebook, when bam!

Instant message from (code name) Jason Bourne (I wish!): Slante (wtf?)

Instant message from (code name) Fenelope (thank God that’s not my name!) huh?

I get the feeling that “Jason” had taken my Irish heritage too seriously, so I do what modern technology is there for, I Google it! It means health in Irish … wonderful!

Now unfortunately this gentleman (he pinched my arse about five minutes after meeting so I use the term loosely) wasn’t the man of my dreams, I also feel I wasn’t the woman of his dreams either. But it did teach me something very important, if you like someone walk up to them, ask for their name, introduce yourself, get their number, call them the next day and ask them out for a drink. No internet or apps!