Love at first poke

Today, technology is growing and so is the world population, which leaves god with little time to make marriages in heaven. A live example of this would be my good old friend who is ready to walk down the aisle with a girl he met through facebook. The news did come as a surprise to me, as it was difficult to believe that someone could just walk out of the facebook screen and probably spend the rest of her life with you.

Gone are the days when a roadside romeo stood below the apartment of his lady love or even stalk her across the city, i mean look at the rising fuel prices. The money that you spend on a gallon of petrol for the bike is more than what you would spend on a monthly internet plan, which also comes with a benefit of playing cupid for those looking for love.

Working in the social media marketing industry has somewhat made me an expert in understanding behavioral patterns of internet users. Along with insights of a particular tool, i also understand insights of minds of social media users and i can more or less anticipate moves on some of the leading platforms. To my surprise, spending a lot of time on the internet has actually elevated the cheesiness quotient among the lusting lone rangers. The "will you fraandships me?" has now been replaced with a google researched quote of some poet from the late 50's and its more like a gentleman now to poke before you add someone on facebook, just to let them know that you are interested.

My friend, who is getting married this year to his facebook-to-reality princess, has been a case study for me to understand how things work. I think in the last one year, they must have virtually broken up dozens of time, which made me believe that its never gonna work out. I mean there was no charm of voyeurism anymore because every time they would have a conflict, it showed in the status updates on facebook. Every time the girl had a status like "Thanks for ruining it" on her wall, the whole world knew who is to be blamed and i would send a text to my friend saying "Yes!!!! you fucked up again".

There is no denial that social media has facilitated the process of finding love for some and getting laid for many, but it cant really be compared to the old-school approach. The Shirin-Farhad style of romance still remains eternal and those who practice it, according to me, are living the real love story.

-Fahad Parack