Romance Remastered

Not just another cheesy love-site.

Deleting is Cheating: Infidelity, Sexting and other Naughties

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All is going well in your relationship and it is all flowers and rainbows. But you notice that your SO is being very shady with her phone. Let’s talk about cheating.

Social media like Facebook and Instagram definitely simplify our lives and is probably the main reason why we are still in touch with classmates from kindergarten, an old friend that moved to Madagascar or your cousin’s girlfriend’s neighbour.  But when you are in a relationship making online connections might not be a good idea.

When our grandparents felt the urge to cheat, they would have to meet someone first, like in actual real life. And then they had to do the classic ‘staying late at work’, send a cheeky fire signal to let the side piece know that mainman is around or hide the box with written notes in a far, dark place.

Nowadays, your significant other could be on the sofa watching TV with you while chatting up cousin Harvey’s girlfriend’s neighbour who just added him on Facebook.

We can divide online cheating in two sections. One is the ‘innocent’ cybersex where you just talk about sex and show your stimulated bodyparts to Kai who lives a million miles away in Japan. John Portmann’s In Defense of Sin argues that such activity is more similar to innocuous flirting than to having an actual affair. The other form of online cheating is chatting up people that you are likely to meet up with in real life.  Here is an example given by a Reddit user in research for Aziz Anzari’s Modern Romance.

He started an affair that he simply wouldn’t have had the gumption to start without Facebook. They worked together and were casual acquaintances. One day he looked her up on Facebook and sent her a message asking, “Would you like to get a drink sometime?” Soon after that the affair began

“If Facebook didn’t exist, I doubt I would have gathered the courage to ask her directly. It made the initial step that much easier.”

“Mild, in-person flirtation is often fleeting and superficial, but when communication extends to social media, texts, and email, your partner becomes available 24/7 for temptation and increased emotional connection” Psychology Today, 2014

How come we are so quickly to be tempted into having an affair via social media? (Apart from the fact that we are all sex-mad, genitals-following zombies.)

According to Affair Recovery, a few of the reasons are:

  1. Accessibility: The Internet provides access to people we would probably not rub elbows with in our normal life.
  2. The Online Disinhibition Effect: Due to the invisibility provided by the Internet, people are less inhibited and will say or do things online they would never speak or do to someone in person. (Yas, you finally dare to send a message to that fit bird that always comes to spinning class on Tuesdays)
  3. The Illusion of Secrecy: This allows for my own self-gratification. No one will ever know I’m living a secret life and fulfilling my fantasies while living as a married person.
  4. Escapism: The fact that one can seemingly escape the responsibilities of real life like bills, mood swings, deadlines, mortgages etc, provides a context of fantasy and escapism.

In the Netherlands there is even a datingsite for cheaters: “Find you Second Love Here” – for which adverts are blatantly shown on primetime TV, lol, all hail the Dutch’s guts.

The rise of Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter’s Direct Messaging feature, it is all too easy to cross the line. But because the lines are so blurred, it is hard to determine when something can be regarded as cheating. Of course, the jealousy level of your partner plays a big deal. I know some guys that will freak out when their woman likes another man’s  picture.

It all comes down to how you use it. Spoons and forks don’t make people fat, using them to put food in your mouth d
oes. Social media does not cause break-ups. People that use it do.

Now, I have to admit that I am quite a jealous person but it seems reasonable to say that everything that comes with and after deleting, is cheating.

And boy, best believe that things are going from a 0 to a 100 real quick if I notice even one of these signs. Clothes out of the window.

And that’s probably why I’m single.

No response: Read 11.30 AM.

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So, you have finally found someone interesting and attractive enough to go on a date with. But two days later you find yourself anxiously staring at your phone as if you are tied to a grenade and an incoming text is the only thing that can save you. Why is he/she not bloody texting back?

Let’s rewind. The night of your date is there, you dress up, shave, look the nicest you can and prepare to be the most charming you can be. The food is great, the cosmopolitans and pints are flowing and you two are chatting and laughing the night away. At the end of the night you both agree to seeing each other again.

Then you are faced with the biggest generation Z concern: How do you communicate further? Obviously, with all the technology the options are endless. You could easily send a message on Facebook, call, send a Morse code signal. But the easy option is to send a text, so you do that: Cool and laidback like the person you are. “Hi, I had so much fun last night. We should meet up again soon. Halo next Friday? Skepta is performing X”. You are a 100% positive that you had a good connection, so you wait… And wait… And wait…No response. You go through a rollercoaster of emotions: Disappointment, anger, sadness, panic. You start questioning your internet coverage, it must be something with the 3G. Or maybe he died? Even if the case was that the other was not interested, they would probably be polite enough to just tell you right? How can someone be SO rude? Did your text contain a lot of typos? WHAT HAPPENED.

We probably all have been there. Or on the other side.

With the rise of technology, there are so many new rules and it has all gotten way to stressful. “Not texting back right away” is probably the most frequently given dating advice E V E R.

“You like him? Don’t text him!” 

“Text Game: Be the man who doesn’t reply!” 

It does make sense to not text back right away: It shows that you are busy living your own life. But apparently there is also a scientific explanation for it.

Reward Uncertainty

According to the Handbook of Reward and Decision making, Reward uncertainty is the term for the unpredictability of the likeliness of receiving a reward. This increases the interest in receiving the reward.

In Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance this has been put in the context of texting.

If a text back from someone is considered a “reward,” consider the fact that lab animals who get rewarded for pushing a lever every time will eventually slow down because they know that the next time they want a reward, it will be waiting for them. So basically, if you are the guy or girl who texts back immediately, you are taken for granted and ultimately lower your value as a reward. As a result, the person doesn’t feel as much of an urge to text you or, in the case of the lab animal, push the lever.

This has all turned into a big issue due to the ever-developing technology. I’m pretty sure my grandmother was not freaking out if my grandfather did not return her loveletter within 0.01 second.

“When you’re texting with someone you’re attracted to, someone you don’t really know yet, it’s like playing a slot machine: There’s a lot of uncertainty, anticipation, and anxiety. Your whole system is primed to receive a message back. You want it—you need it—right away, and if it doesn’t come, your whole system is like, ‘Aaaaah!’ You don’t know what to do with the lack of response, the unresolved outcome.” Natasha Schull, anthropologist.

There it is. All the scientific reasons why he did not text you back or why you are not texting her back. But quit playing games. Dating in this moden era is already exhausting enough – I’ve even had to master the art of using the exact amount of words in my replies. We all just want to be happy. So regardless of what science says, go and text that person back and have a good time!forgot

The timeline of a romantic relationship: An Introduction

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If you’ve had a look at our about page you can see what the blogs will be about; Romance in the age of social media.

However, to come back to the promise I’ve made on that page, I will not be cheesing. The blogs will have several topics, all synchronic to a real relationship; From finding that person -who does not text back at first- to making it Facebook Official and all the way up to using the internet as a cheattool or to do other naughties. (P.S.: If none of this is applicable to you then God bless your heart and your perfect relationship).

Technology has undoubtedly influenced the way we look at relationships, and relationships itself, for better -uhum, sexting when you’ve got a long distance thing going on, hells yas!- or worse; no real communication.

“Romance has become undermined by the concept of social media and online dating sites. It has surpassed the physical, intimate attraction and connectedness between two individuals. We have come to see it as an illusion” – The Odyssee Online.

Would not our dating life be so much better if we were still living in the 50’s? Fair enough, we still have milkshakes and racism and everything is probably more convenient with technology, but think about it. Our grandfathers would ask the girl from down the hall out, go for a milkshake and an outside movie, meet her parents and be married to her within no time. First off, how weird is it to meet someone’s parents the same night you met them? And second, how bizarre is it to even think about marrying that annoying boy from down the block! Comedian Aziz Ansari mentions a study in his book ‘Modern Romance’, from a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania which showed that 1 out of 6 couples had lived within the same block before getting married and one out of every 8 had even lived in the same building!

One reason it’s so hard to imagine marrying the people we grew up with is that these days we marry much later than people in previous generation – Aziz Ansari.

Which brings me right to it. To make it a bit personal, I’ll give you a peek from my view. I am 21 years old, which means that I’m at the most awkward age. Half of my friends are pledging to stay single as long as they haven’t met the one person that is up to their standards, and the other half are settling down, getting engaged and/or even getting married. To be honest, I’m probably in the first category; staying single. One of the reasons I’m still single is because I refuse to settle for less. This is the difference between us, youngsters, and our grandparents. We refuse to settle because we know how far we can go. Why go on one -good- Tinder-date and marry the guy right away when we have got a whole database and a whole life full of potential soulmates? But if my granddad would not hit it off with that girl from down the block, he would settle down with the girl from two blocks away.

“People would go as far as they have to find a mate, but no farther” – J. Ellsworth Jr., sociologist.

Sometimes I do envy my friends that settled for less but are still in a happy relationship, or my grandparents. Because our generation, Generation Z, has too much choice. And too much choice leads to not choosing.