“Sex, Intimacy and the Internet”
A headline of this column from a couple of weeks worked so well in snaring curious, unsuspecting readers, I thought I’d try it again to increase the readership of this column. This ploy works for the Globe and the National Inquirer, so why not for the FFBNews. Once again, however, the subject matter of today’s column is the same old tame stuff about how men and women differ in their use of today’s topic – the home computer/Internet.
The key difference between men and women runs about the same for the Internet as it does for the the telephone. Women regard the telephone as a personal friend, a lifeline to the outside world, satisfying their innate need to communicate. Men, on the other hand, are all business on the telephone with words as rare as diamonds – “hold the feelings and let’s get to the point!”
When it comes to the computer and the Internet, however, men spend a lot of time interacting with the ghostly screen. The best way to understand this attraction is to think about it as the Internet being like a hardware store. Men are notorious for strolling through the isles of a Home Depot or a Lowe’s. Every shelf in the store offers a new tool that will do the job – whether the job is an ongoing one such as blowing the accursed leaves or building a new wooden toy train for a grandson. On the Internet, a man can find a scratcher for his every conceivable itch. Music? – download it onto a file and then copy it on to your own CD. Info on how to build a husband-sized doghouse? – just type in the search box “Doghouses for Spouses. Write a novel? – just open up Word Perfect and let it fly. If he needs to know for his book what the vegetation and temperature are in Mojave Desert where the murder takes place, the Internet can find it for him!
BUT THE BEST THING ABOUT THE COMPUTER FOR A MAN IS THAT HE DOESN’T HAVE TO TALK TO ANYONE!!!! He can be about his business and not be slowed down by needless, inane talk. The computer is the perfect appliance for him in his man cave.
The ladies use the computer much differently than men. Ladies use it in much the same the way they use the telephone: their number one Internet topic is feelings and relationships, closely followed by recipes, diets, and what they are going to wear. They send e-cars such as Blue Mountain, Hallmark, and We Got Cards; they pass on jokes; they forward religious messages and touchy-feely poems sent with angelic pictures accompanied by The Mormon Temple Choir. And their favorite forwards are those that promise untold blessings for gullible recipients such as finding a parking place close or that the stoplights will all be green – “BUT THIS CAN ONLY HAPPEN IF YOU DO NOT FAIL TO PASS THIS MESSAGE ON TO AT LEAST FIFTEEN FRIENDS!”
Thus, ladies are heavy users of REPLY, REPLY to ALL., and FORWARD in their email programs. Every tidbit they receive is passed on to countless other women who then pass it on to more countless females. Nothing in God’s creation could be more satisfying to a woman than to know that everything she has to say or even think can now be heard by untold millions of women!
But the woman’s finest hour on the Internet is the complete fulfillment of her nurturing nature that occurs when she passes on URBAN LEGENDS and INTERNET HOAXES by the carload. For example, a niece with two youngsters recently sent us an email with a “head-up warning” that some kid just died from being stuck by a hypodermic needle loaded with heroin when he was playing in a Discovery Zone playroom filled with plastic balls. And please, please DO NOT INGEST ASPARTAME, AS IT’LL KILL YOU! And don’t forget to write your Congressman about the FTC taking off TV the program Date with An Angel because it “violates the separation of Church and State!”
Nothing thrills a woman more than kissing an ow-ow or saving a life, so all these thousands of phony stories that float around the Internet are kept alive by our ever-loving, ever-sending mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. We love them dearly, but don’t they make life interesting!
(This story as re-written and updated, first ran in the FFBNews on Nov, 27, 2002.)