In a train journey during a college industrial visit I just popped a question to my friend

‘How did your relationship began? Who said it first?’

One friend’s answer lead to curiosity of another and a chain of questions and answers followed until almost the entire class got involved in the discussion.

‘It was just a plain text message’

‘He didn’t say it but sang a song so even I didn’t say it but replied through a song’

‘We said it together like the text messages reached exactly at the same time’

And so many more stories of the ultimate confession for a feeling for someone special in our teens were discussed. The thing I noticed was the first time feelings said were through texts, calls or in meet ups and later on whatsapp texts and fewer skyped. The way emotions got conveyed is so heavily influenced by the technology available.

The good old ways of writing letters, waiting in a line to connect a call on a public telephone booth, waiting for calls to connect on the landlines etcetera. I remember I wished to write and receive letters from my first love, we wrote and coordinated through phone to get it exchanged from my building’s letter box despising the entire purpose of wait for a letter yet maintaining the hand written expression of feelings. That is how difficult it gets to express feelings in the style of a different technological era.

However I feel the advancements in technologies has decreased part of emotions and feelings, now by swiping left and right you decide your date. Your heart hardly plays a role and your brain’s decision in few seconds tells you with whom to go out for. Yes over the years society evolves and lot of changes occur in the way relationships work but my problem is the speed. The speed at which one decides to date someone and break off with someone is making it difficult for the feelings to survive, fights over changing status after being in relation and even sharing passwords is a huge discussion when topics to talk should be intended to know and understand the other. The part of the virtual world in the relationship complicates the emotional aspect of it.

Recently the known television star committed suicide due to issues with her boyfriend, I remember a few years back a famous film actress do so for similar reasons. When emotions and feelings go offline and communicating relationship issues goes haywire such results are seen. For me the ultimate secret to have a healthy relation is to understand how to romance with time, the time you get with your loved one. To try and attempt to know the other person’s likes and dislikes in real life rather than the things of the virtual world. As much as the internet and the digital age eases ways to communicate it complicates ways of expressing oneself.

If we consider movies depicting the way the society is then I belong to the time of the movie Sirf Tum, a very rare unusual love story of being in love with someone without ever meeting them but falling in love with the letters exchanged. However hard one may try, this kind of love story is difficult to survive in this digital age. A movie I watched last night made me feel so, that this is the age of speedy relations where the two lead stars just fall in the love entirely got conveyed on social media and shows complications in surviving such relationship. Such movies make me feel like an alien to this age where I still like to write to convey what I feel, thanks to postcrossing.com that my faith in writing still exists. May be this exactly why for the last couple of months I have been writing letters for my friends on Birthdays, Farewells and have been unable to give it to them due to this detachment I am feeling inside me!

Overall I feel the virtual world living is decreasing the understanding of living in reality and is in a way complicating expression of emotions and feelings. For good or for bad only time and more advancements shall tell.