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"If I felt I was managing myself from being sucked into the technology vortex before, I was officially annihilated a few evenings back when I discovered Skype. Yep, just me and my old writing partner, Mr. Herb Goss, were going at it face-to-face via personal computers about a script. In addition to notes on character and plot development, we caught up on our lives. &amp;quot;Did your wife really say that?&amp;quot; I asked. &amp;quot;How was Rex&amp;#039;s trip to New Jersey?&amp;quot; he inquired. Oh yeah - and something about money, politics and religion was sprinkled in there as well. It was fabulous! It was like we were right in the room with each other! And yet we were not. We were thousands of miles away, connected only by a DSL internet and a flat screen. We had intimacy, and yet we didn&amp;#039;t. We had connection and yet it was a false sense of intimacy. After all, if he cried, could I hand him a tissue? If I laughed, could he see the crinkle of my eyes through the hazy lense of the monitor? It would be simple to say, &amp;quot;This is not the way life really is! Replacing the human person with a machine is going to eradicate relationships as we know it!&amp;quot; But at the same time, didn&amp;#039;t people once say that about the telephone? &amp;quot;You mean you can chat with someone over an earpiece? What happened to walking the ten miles in the rain to say hello? What is going to happen to romance?&amp;quot; I suppose the answer lies somewhere in between both of these scenarios. It comes down to choice: Will we use technology to better ourselves as earthlings - to show our true capacity for love and growth? Or will we grow more apathetic by the day, thinking we have true alliance with someone only to find that, like a nymph looking at her reflection in a river, we only see what we want to see - a clincial mirror of &amp;quot;happiness&amp;quot; shining back at us? You might wonder what all this has to do with sex. So I&amp;#039;ll tell you. Half way through my phone chat with Herb, I took my shirt off to show him the double D&amp;#039;s that loomed on the other side of the screen. After all, it over the internet, so it wasn&amp;#039;t really cheating, right? OH COME ON! Like I&amp;#039;d do that! At the end of our session, fully clothed, I blew him a kiss good by and sat down with Rex: a real human being (who I sometimes mistake for a computer for his tech knowledge). Speaking of... Rex, I love you for setting me up with Skype, but guess what? You can&amp;#039;t get rid of me so fast. You&amp;#039;re stuck with a live breathing woman who complains, moans and loves the hell out of this life you&amp;#039;ve provided for - and with - her. And no, Skype didn&amp;#039;t even sponsor me to say that. PS: That&amp;#039;s Herb, in all his Hollywood glory, the day of Rex and my wedding. PSS: No, he&amp;#039;s not gay. PSSS: No, we&amp;#039;ve never had sex. PSSSS: You have more questions? Tune into the next blog. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a22311/skype-computers-dating-internet-marriage-communication-technology-writing-screenwriting-herb-goss/>