Falling In Love Via The Airwaves

Typical Sundays for me happily include a complete reading of the “big” paper. And in the “big” paper today, there were two pages dedicated to the most anticipated movies for this holiday season including snippets of what they were about and who stars.

There was also an article interviewing Scarlett Johansson (who is not a favorite of mine) about her voice-only role in the movie "Her" (also staring Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams (who I do love)).

It’s about a man who falls in love with his newly purchased OS that is meant to meet his every need. Essentially he falls in love with a voice.

The concept of the movie was so interesting to me that I immediately searched for the trailer. I liked it very much. In fact, my eyes welled up. Then again, I cry much too easily and just about anything touching releases the flood gates (I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good or bad thing) so maybe I’m not an accurate barometer of such tender topics like love stories.

But it got me thinking. Could I, or anyone, actually fall in love with someone purely by their voice? Over the phone. Just by their words. Never seeing them in person.

Looking at it another way, could I, or anyone, fall in love with someone purely through emails? Black letters on a white screen.

Can they be considered viable lovers?

There is certainly the possibly of being more vulnerable. In this technological state, we’re liberated from any kind of judgment that other people might place on our appearance.

It's not as scary to say things (we'd say things we might well not in person), display certain emotions, through a DSL hookup. A little scarier over a telephone wire as there’s the “real time” element to it. But it’s downright frightening more often than not in person.

Hmmm. Then there’s the visual and physical elements. They’re missing, obviously. Biologically, we are made to see and touch (I’ll leave smell and taste out of it for today). We are visually stimulated by other human beings, also by animals, art, etc. We are warm and soft to the fingertips and lips. We crave these things, don’t we? I do.

And if we knew what the "other" person looked like but the interaction was still only through technology, would that change how we felt about them? 

Well, I certainly don’t have any answers. I was just thinking out loud.