Can love exist within the demands of the new technology?
Randi Gunther Ph.D.
Rediscovering Love
As a relationship therapist with forty years of experience, I am both fascinated and concerned about technology’s potential to outpace the success of intimate relationships. If we are constantly seduced into procuring the latest innovations in ever-more-amazing technological gagetry, how can we not want the same continuous novelty in our personal relationships? And, if so, how do we even consider living in a long term relationship where innovative discovery naturally diminishes over time? It would seem that sequential, revolving-door relationships should serve the purpose of ever-new experiences that hold our interest.
The beginning of each new relationship does fulfill those desires for both commitment and novelty… for awhile. New lovers are awash in discovering every facet about each other. They spend endless hours memorizing smells, memories, preferences, and desires. They are joyously intent upon living in each others hearts while voluntarily drowning in the magic of new lust.
When I watch them, I am always amazed at the intensity with which they focus on mastery of each others every dimension. I also realize that most of those new couples will fall out of love eventually. The multiplicity of connections and continued motivations that great, long-term relationships require are hard to come by and easier to leave behind, especially when another new and more exciting experience is easy to find.
I observe my patients with each new technological gadget, intensely immersed and devoted until the next more up-to-date version emerges. The recently beloved castaway lies in the dust, ungrieved and forgotten. How similar this is to sequential, lust-driven relationships that produce the same intense immersion and eventual decline. Why wouldn’t lovers want to feel continuously excited and challenged in their intimate relationships the same way as they are by their new telephones? Read More
