How long did it take you to fall in love? How many dates before you were officially boyfriend and girlfriend?
According to recent research, we are falling in love quicker than ever, with it now just taking 224 tweets and 163 text messages for us to woo our partners. Approximately*. Apparently it now takes the average couple just 24 days to refer to each other as girlfriend and boyfriend, compared to 78 days a generation or two ago.
Do you think we are falling in love quicker than ever? Does social media make it easier to get the girl (or boy) or is it an artificial intimacy?
What isn’t made clear in the article is whether you actually have to spend any face to face time together, or whether the 140 characters alone is enough to seduce a future partner. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people on Twitter that I have shared 224 tweets with over the years, but I am under no illusion at all that I actually know anything about them, let alone that I am in love with them.
Sure, it’s nice to have ways to communicate quickly and easily, but those things can’t replace physical closeness, that time spent lying face to face in bed with someone, sharing stories from your past. While phones and social media can compliment that, I simply don’t believe that you can know someone from a tweet.
Or even 224 of them.
What do you think?
*Waits patiently while you go and count how many texts you have exchanged with that potential new partner
The fact that we can measure things in Tweets and texts is hilarious! I guess online interactions are the new hand-written love letters, perhaps?