How to Torture Yourself With Technology

How to Torture Yourself with Technology

Well. Facebook etiquette. According to my flatmate it doesn't exist. Unfortunately have fallen into the habit of FB chatting with a certain hot guy that I kind of like. Now, whenever I log on, I'm waiting for him to pop up...

This feeling of anticipation makes me feel like I'm back in secondary school, when passing scribbled love notes during History was the preferred way of communicating with someone that you fancied. My friends and I would spend hours afterwards decoding each note - every exclamation mark, the number of kisses and what colour ink he'd used. In those days, as unimaginable as it is now, a guy could call your landline and you wouldn't know he had called. Can you imagine that? It seems so quaint now, like something from the 1950s. You could always say to yourself 'Oh so and so might have called while I was out...' and a small window of hope would remain.

Over the summer, I went to Turkey on holiday and met a gorgeous guy there. On my return, after I had vowed to forget about him and get on with my (much less colourful) life in the UK, he started popping up on Facebook Chat. Once I had started to expect him to message me, it became a nightmare. The problem lies with the fact that you can see on Facebook when the person you like is online. And if he's online but has decided not to message you, then he's definitely not interested. After a couple of weeks, the Turkish guy's messages became less frequent. And after I had firmly told him that I wouldn't be flashing certain parts of my anatomy on Skype, his passion for me definitely cooled.

I wasn't keen on Skype anyway... it creates a difficult situation. Imagine the scenario...

It's a Monday night and after a hard day at work you're stretched on the sofa with a copy of Star magazine wearing a pair of trackies and a T-shirt that has hair dye all over it. You're wearing your glasses and no make up. Suddenly you realise the hot Turkish guy is skyping you... what do you do?

Well, what you do is, you accept the call and then run to the bathroom in a flap (stubbing your toe on the edge of the shower cubicle on the way) and try to apply mascara and foundation in five seconds whilst simultaneously slipping into a sexy (but not too try hard) top. Trackies can stay on. I can vouch for the fact that applying mascara whilst trying to change your clothes is really not a good idea. Red, watering eyes weren't exactly the look I was going for but at least he couldn't see my spots.

This went on for a couple of weeks and then, as I said above, he suddenly stopped calling and messaging me. So I deleted him from my Facebook friends list. It was way less painful for me that way – removing the possibility that he was going to call meant that I could browse without torturing myself that maybe he was going to get in touch.

I'm now toying with the idea of deleting this latest guy from my friends list. I just can't cope with the uncertainty of whether he's going to get in touch or not. I've fallen into the habit of checking Facebook as soon as I get in from work and then throughout the evening. It's really not healthy – I could be spending my time in much more worthwhile pursuits, like reading Glamour, doing pelvic floor exercises or examining my blackheads in the bathroom mirror.

However, technology can occasionally be used to make relationships less complicated. My new flatmate recently showed me an App alluringly called 'Grindr' which is just for gay men. It has photos of gay men who live in the area and also lists their vital measurements and how far away they are at that moment in time. Basically, a way of finding the nearest hot men and ascertaining whether they'd be up for some no strings attached action. Now why don't we have something like that for straight people? Or maybe we do and I just haven't found it yet....