Proposal.
I came home from clinical last night to discover I had a message from my friend John:
JOHN: did you go to Holy Rosary on Sunday?
He had asked. I replied….
ME: no....
JOHN: ok
ME: why do you ask?
JOHN: well i was just getting to that. so in father phils homily, he began with a story
JOHN: so there was this guy who came into the rectory and was like father how come the church is all locked up
JOHN: and father was like well its winter and cold and it gets dark earlier so we close it up a little earlier
JOHN: and he was like oh, i thought it was always open
JOHN: then he said I actually wanted to propose to my girlfriend and father was like where is she
JOHN: and he said waiting outside
JOHN: so father said you all know the cupid that I am I opened up the church and turned all the lights on and went back to my office
JOHN: and as he left he waved with the a ok hand sign
John continued by asking me what I thought of a proposal in the church. He had his opinions, but wanted to know what a woman would think of the circumstance of her proposal.
Then, in today’s class, we were discussing the Motorola ROKR and its musical capabilities. It was mentioned that the ROKR stops the music as a person is receiving a call and then continues once the call has ended. Professor Yoo stated that he thought it would be neat if the music would continue playing while you answered the call. My immediate response was, “so when your parents call you, you can ignore them and continue listening to the music?” (just kidding mom and dad!) No. he meant that it would be great if they other person could hear the music as well. And presented us with a romantic situation… playing some sweet love song, and then proposing!
What?!? You want to propose to someone over your cell phone? As the class laughed at this and then made jokes about proposing through text messages, I immediately thought about my conversation with John the previous night. Both men were discussing the same situation, but in two very different ways. I’m a very traditional person; I don’t think I would ever appreciate a cell phone proposal. That’s a great story to tell your children (note the sarcasm). (Although I do see that a mobile telephone can be used to facilitate other romantic endeavors) But I feel like this is the direction our society is taking. Less personal interaction. More interaction through devices, cell phones, computers, webcams, etc. What happened to the traditional standards of proposing to people face to face? Will we punish our children via text to avoid any feelings of guilt?
One of the reasons I chose nursing as a profession was so that I could meet and interact with people. I love living on campus because it allows me to meet and interact with my peers. I love going to Croatia because it allows me to meet and interact with my relatives. Get it? Yes, I subscribe to using AIM, SMS, Gmail… all those good things to keep in touch with people as well… but that is sometimes because I have no other options. And yes, I have had many meaningful conversations with people through aim, sms, and gmail, but never do I feel that these medias should ever fully replace simple human to human interaction. What do you think? Where do you draw the line on how you use cell phones and e-mails?
Comments
Posted by: John
Posted on: December 5, 2005 11:43 PM
I feel honored to be mentioned in your blog. First Mano Singham and now you. Thank You. I realized today while talking to my friend JTV that while i do talk to him online every now and then we just have so much more fun talking to each other in person. We are able to pick up on each other's jokes, and pick up where the other left off, and just catching up is all the more fun. I definitely do love talking to people in person, getting to know them. I have gotten to know him really well by the things we do together in person. But I also have another friend who at first I didnt talk to too much except online through im. Yet slowly but surely we got to know each other and the little details of each other lives. We then became good friends and I love spending time with her now but one of my best friends grew from im. So I guess in the end either works for me.