The Convenience of Disconnection

We've embraced online shopping because it allows us to browse, compare, select and return without the awkwardness of human interaction. No uncomfortable conversations, no explanations, no disapproving glances from a shop assistant when we decide something isn't quite what we wanted.

And somewhere along the way, we began approaching online dating in much the same manner. We browse people as though they were products, compare them against alternatives and quietly discard those who fail to meet our expectations. The convenience is extraordinary. So, too, is the ease with which we forget that behind every profile is a human being.

A real person, capable of infinitely more than any carefully constructed biography could possibly reveal. Someone with their own insecurities, aspirations and vulnerabilities. Someone just as capable of experiencing hurt as the person examining their photograph.

Yet because we cannot see the consequences of our behaviour, we sometimes behave as though those consequences don't exist.

I wonder what Shakespeare's Shylock might have made of this peculiar modern marketplace.  Perhaps his famous appeal to our shared humanity would have taken a slightly different form:

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

And if you swipe us away, do we not feel rejected? If you forget that we have blood in our veins, do we cease to matter?

If you cannot see us, do we not feel the darkness when you leave?