The following was written by a friend of mine, Dave Hegarty. I ve met him just the once, and this describes our first meeting over Christmas:
Four friends sat around a table, some old and some new. Him and his friend, me and my friend. Luckily we are all sufficiently deep and intense (or should that be thoughtful and interested, or should that be pretentious) that, despite practically being strangers, the conversation is vital and stimulating.
The conversation moved around a lot because we agreed so much. There is not much need for further discussion in agreement, everyone relates their anecdote, everybody nods, and then the talk moves on.
Four friends sat around a table, in part a testimony to the power of the Internet, for the thing that brought us together on that evening was the Internet, and this was the first real world meeting.
The Internet is a medium well matched to the deep and intense, offering the opportunity for a meaningful, reflected-upon exchange, like a regular letter, while stripping away the necessity for the mundane normally associated with something so immediate. Stories were swapped about love stories that developed across the boundaries of cyberspace, where physical encounters which would have been short and sweet and soon forgotten five years ago, took on entire spiritual existences of their own in cyberspace.
In two cases that are known to me, both of them intercontinental, the resumption of the physical end of things flowed automatically from the e-mail exchange. We were sat around a table, and this was a relationship that had never before existed face to face. But we knew before we started we knew we liked one another, across the boundaries of gay and straight, into the area common to the male experience.
Here we were, gay, lesbian and straight, Irish, Australian, and American, home or here just for the Christmas.
There was talk of the split that is part of having a past in one place and a present and maybe even a future in some other place (and sometimes it is easy to forget that the Irish are not the only people scattered across the face of the planet). Apart, perhaps, from the disappearance of its almost inescapable inevitability in this country with Ireland s ascendancy to being a European tiger economy, the most remarkable thing about this split is that it is founded on having two sets of hope. Its confusion lies not so much in standing at a fork in the path, but in travelling down one path, and all the time having the option of springing across a low hedge onto another . . . all the time having the option of springing across a low hedge onto another . . .
Thanks, Dave, I couldn t have put it better myself. The cheque is in the post. :-)
poisonous
intensity
Cybersex is the buzzword of the lazy media these days; but it s a red herring. The really important change brought about by the new technology is in human friendships.
In future biographies of prominent figures of our current age, there will be sections devoted not to their love letters, but to their love e-mails. Histories of present and future political movements, scientific developments and artistic endeavours, will have as their research material hard discs instead of ribbon-tied bundles of paper. That is, if they re lucky.
So much of Internet culture is transient, written on-the-fly. Ideas are cross-fertilising as never before; intellectual shifts take place in weeks, days, hours; when before, the timescale was months, years, even decades. Anywhere in the world you can tap into the most erudite discussions about your chosen field of interest, and read about new developments as they occur. Never before has information been so widely available, or the latest trends been so speedily broadcast to the world.
The human collective mind may be speeding up, but emotions can t hope to catch up. Nor should they, of course. But it is surprising the level of intimacy that can build up in an e-mail correspondence.
It is also surprising how heated exchanges can get. Perhaps because of the cold nature of the medium, it is appallingly easy to press SEND on a hastily-written diatribe; there isn t the bracing walk to the post box to give you time to decide not to post what you ve written. I ve had e-mail rows ( flame wars ) of the type of persistent, poisonous intensity that would be impossible to sustain if the two of us were in the same room. One of us would have probably burst into tears first. I ve had hate mail containing sentiments that could not be spoken by the writer in company, for the group reaction would be so unanimously hostile that only the demented could shrug it off.
Perhaps I ve corresponded with the demented, for all I know. I remember a couple of years ago hotly debating whether the HIV virus causes AIDS with someone from Florida. He seemed rational, if a little eccentric; it wasn t until he shared with me the fact that he fed his baby daughter diluted raw molasses in her bottle that I realised what would probably have been obvious had I met him face to face. Or seen his daughter s teeth.
But the opportunities for creating and sustaining relationships on the Internet are immense. Geographical and gender barriers dissolve; all that you need are a shared interest and the capacity to put your feelings and thoughts into words.
Of course, there are drawbacks; one cannot truly trust someone until you look into their eyes. But a poetic exposition of one s soul to someone halfway across the globe goes a long way towards building a new kind of companionship, a new kind of love. That may not make for lurid banner headlines, as the journos get their rocks off whilst imagining the kind of sexual kicks the Internet may provide, but in the long term I suspect it may be one of the most beneficial aspects of the new technology. Poetry. Well, you get what you look for, you know. n