Love in the time of emojis

Easy to get a phone number, initiate contact and go LOL every few seconds when conversation lags. A smiley here, a thumbs-up there… no one has to scratch their head about what to say, what to say. No clearing of throats, no awkward smiles. No need to pen bad poetry; just cut-paste something beautiful from Google, and the other party goes aaawww.

Following, liking, commenting, DM-ing, sexting. For the youth of today, the old-fashioned wooing in the black and white films will appear senile. We watched Jeetendra and Sridevi execute synchronised steps while screeching high-pitched; kids today watch terse dialogue by actors on Netflix.

Also, being the children of divorces or bitter marriages takes its toll. The present crop of lovers is cool with break-ups as they are with hook-ups. Earlier even if your father had murdered your mother you were happy they were married to each other right till the end; now mothers are openly vocal about troubled marriages and themselves in other relationships once the divorce comes through. The adults currently coming out of the conveyor belt are sensitised to the idea of impermanence.

Each era is vain about its courtship rituals. It is easy to look down on this generation and declare their amour immature, budding and building as it does in the ether most of the time. But that would be the blind take on it. It is not emotions that contract or expand, it is the expression of them that’s susceptible to fashion.

AI has infiltrated EQ; chat-rooms are war zones. What was bold once is ‘lame’ today. The nitty-gritty, the nut and bolts of new-age dating, of playing hard to get, of starting something, of going with the flow, of changing the mind, of starting all over again is on fast-forward, yes. All of it only spells evolution in the mating game.