A most distinguished woman of 86 has written an erotic poem to her computer -
witty and wonderful. She will not publish it, nor allow me to quote from it
- even without her name. Well, I'm not there yet, but I certainly understand
the impulse to produce such a paregoric to a machine. Every time I boot up,
it's as though the world opened up. Every time I feel lonely or
unappreciated, I turn to email. Every time I run into a glitch - and get it
fixed - aaah, such satisfaction! Even the tendency toward promiscuity may be
not-so-vaguely felt when a new program is installed and a new icon appears on
the desktop screen!
Now I have written my own poem and here it is:
Always there late at night or early morning
Ready to turn on with a little touch, a playful push
A flick, a click and another part springs to life
Moving, synchronizing, all smoothly building
To satisfy my every desire -
Hal? Paul? Bob? Bill? Dick? - Ah Dick -
No, no, you encompass them all
In color, in movement, in production,
In imagination, even satisfaction
As you give forth with your caressing words,
Your soulful music, your painter's strokes,
Your visions of other worlds,
Other sensuous, sensational experiences
You absorb my mind, you absorb my body -
I am chained to you,
alas too willingly
For I have no time to find another Hal or Paul or Bob or Bill -
Never mind Dick --
You are always there for me and when we move together
How complete our unity!
Now you are in crescendo mode and together
We produce -
Eruption, Interruption, an Error Message!
Alas, I must turn you off Hal, Paul, Bob, Bill
And even Dick.
Until tonight.
I hope you liked my poem. Did it make you laugh? Please let me know!
This is all a prelude to another amazing phenomenon of the computer: finding love online.
America OnLine (AOL) even calls this site: Love@AOL. But, of course, you say to yourself, this is all for kids or 20-to-30- year-olds, but not for you. And if you are a woman of a certain age, you immediately think negatively - what kind of men could possibly get involved on a computer? Obviously, men who are either losers or up to no good. And if you're a man and romantic, you may scorn such a method of making a love connection or think the women who would do so are particularly undesirable. And for either sex, what's the point of wasting time since the over 60-crowd will never turn to a computer for love.
Well, I have news for you --
We do, we have, you can too!
My own experiences are limited, but interesting and to some extent enlightening. A while ago, I had an email romance with a most intriguing man whom I found on one site or another. We finally met at an excellent Japanese restaurant (70th and Columbus Ave.).He was tall enough and not bad looking and had artistic and intellectual interests. We both knew he was not for me or me for him. He was looking for someone younger than I, and I was very put off by his negative reactions to his children, particularly one son to whom he does not talk.
A lot of time passed since this experience -- the computer was absorbing me! Then one evening I discovered not only AOL's love site, but also that of Yahoo. And lo and behold, there was no charge and they did list people of all ages. So I clicked on to Personals using a pen name (you can get one too on either AOL or any other email site) and checked into "Men Looking For Woman." A number of men sounded interesting to me, and I'm a fussy type concerning education, height, interests, location.
Finally, due to time pressure I answered two postings by email. One man lives in California and we began an intense email correspondence since he sounded very, very interesting. But somewhere along the line, his emphasis on legalizing all drugs gave me some concern. The issue was not the point to me; the question of whether he took drugs was. I asked, no answer. Instead a Valentine' s Day gift of electronic roses came to me. I answered, no response.
The other man gave me his phone number. He had been born in another country, but lived here for many years - and one of his interests is ancient cultures. That sounded very promising. And so we arranged to meet. Into the coffee shop walked a tall, large man impeccably dressed, and quite good-looking! He had brought along a booklet about ancient cultures. He has traveled extensively, he lives in the city I love, he kissed my hand when we parted. He has not called. Do I call him? But I'm too busy with the computer!
A little easier way of looking around presents itself too-late-at-night to call or too early in the morning. I have recently checked out some of the men on the AOL personals site. One man was extremely suspicious since he had been harassed (very, very frequent phone calls) from one woman. And some men in their 60's are very sure that they only want to meet women in their 30's. (So what else is new?)
AOL gives a choice of pictures or text, which is useful. But many men will post bad pictures of themselves! By bad, I mean photographically so poor that it's hard to know what the man really looks like. (Women do the same.) One man whose picture was not bad, had written a rather clever doggerel, seemed intelligent, etc., etc. He also was concerned that this picture put him in too good a light and he emailed me a picture with wrinkles! So we have had a telephone conversation (I called him, he doesn't have my real name or number) and he still sounds somewhat interesting. His first experience with a woman he met through the computer was extremely negative - she was exceptionally bad-looking, had done nothing to fix herself up in clothing, makeup, hairdo, had no personality to recommend her -- and he had made a blind dinner date with her and his son and wife. His son doesn't let him forget it! However, as a result, while he is playing the field, he wants a picture. Dilemma? Do I send a picture?
Another man, a retired doctor of 66 years also sounded promising, but I let a couple of months go by and by that time, he was already involved and committed - or so he said in email. Still, he popped up on Instant Messaging (IM) on AOL that is both time-consuming and fun. If you don't know IM, try it with a family member or a friend. It is a two-way email conversation on the screen. My IM conversation with this doctor revealed the following: in the two months, he had received 50 messages from women, had dated 12 of them, settled on one. In his words: "I thought most of the women were ones that I might have chosen to date because of their appearance, personalities, intelligence, etc. I felt very sorry that such a large number of women were without mates and felt they truly needed mates for whatever reason. Most wanted to love and be loved." Another man, felt badly about all the lonely women out there - neither of them ever for a moment thinking of themselves or of all the lonely men who need and want love. And believe me, there are plenty! Our lengthy IM conversation seemed to indicate that my correspondent was not that committed, since he wanted my telephone number! Although I haven't done it yet, AOL tells me that you can print out these conversations by the following method. In AOL, when you first get on, click on My Files, then Log Manager, Open Log, File Name - select one (which saves it), and then O.K. You may not do any IM, but in the event you do and want to refer back, you will have the ability to do so.
You can find the online sites for dating by looking for the small "personals" word that is posted on browsers like Netscape and on search engines. Some of the online Love sites charge a fee, sometimes substantial; some do not seem to believe that anyone has even reached 50 years much less any older-than-that age; some are simply too soupy or schlocky to bother with. In any case, even AOL thinks the age cut-off for romance is 61 plus! It's as though people over 65, 70, 80, 90 do not ever have any new relationship! Still, I have heard of long-term relationships and marriages that began through one of the Personal ads on line even among the older-age group.
So far, in my view the search for friendship, love, whatever, seems much enhanced by the use of the computer. But you should realize that this is a very, very time-consuming search unless almost any male will do for you if you are a woman and vice versa if you are a man. One of the sites claims that they have hundreds of thousands of older men on a global basis. And AOL says that they have 577,000 ads. I can believe that. Even if you just click on men of 61 or older on AOL and you click on white and "pictures" and New York State, you'll come up with 86 men! Who has time and patience to click on each, read what each has to say and make a decision whether to write an email. For women searching for men with the same conditions, there are 54 ads. Women obviously are more likely to be shy or nervous, since there are many more older women alone than there are older men alone. Therefore, the ad postings should be more than those of men.
A number of women have posted ads - and pictures. I have not - yet. A sort of natural caution. And here are some caveats, if you are a woman, do not give your real name or phone number until you can check out the man; do not meet the man in your home or in any isolated place; choose a hotel lobby or a coffee shop; do not travel to anyplace at first. Let someone else know where you're going. Always be gracious, but skeptical until the situation proves otherwise. Don't be afraid to ask some personal questions -- you should not ask about income, however, although a few men do post income. Your questions should concern family, past experiences, personal tastes and interests. If you know right away that this man could never be for you, give him the courtesy of spending a little time with him. And do let the man talk about himself. Being a good listener in this kind of situation is a good thing.
And lastly, please let me know about your own experiences now, in the future or in the past!
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONIC ITEMS I LOVE
It's a strange thing to love, but if it were not for a small item called USB, my computer life would be quite limited. This mysterious item is well known to computer technical people. It stands for Universal Serial Bus. "Bus" means a connection mechanism. And that is what this new item does: it allows you to connect outside-the-computer items (a scanner, a printer, Card Scan, a digital camera, etc.) to a small box (called a hub) that sits on top of your big tower. This "hub" is connected to the back of your computer, hopefully to a USB outlet. Its like a power strip, but instead of connecting many appliances to a wall outlet for power you are connecting many devices to your computer to transfer data.
When the original IBM PC was designed, not enough ports were designed in, as a result even today you are often limnited to one parallel and two serial ports. If you are big on trying out many other items that require a computer connection at some point, then a 4-port USB hub will give you more outlets to connect to. And some people are so involved in other items, or a second computer, that the use of a USB Tower might be called for. The Tower will give you 7 outlets, or you could fit one 4-port item on top of another one - for 8 ports.
If you have a fairly new machine, it is very likely to have that kind of outlet (or "jack") on the back. If you do not, there are other ways to connect a USB hub. You will need to have a USB adapter card installed in your computer, this card will provide one or more USB jacks.
In order to connect a device to your computer by USB the device must also have a USB jack. More and more scanners, digital cameras, printers, etc. are coming USB ready. Generally the computer "sees" the USB device as soon as you plug in the USB cable into the hub or the back of the computer. Windows will prompt you for the installation disk, if necessary.
The company that I have turned to is Belkin because I love their catalogues, too. The USB one has an amazing variety; and their very large catalogue depicts an incredible number of other items - cables and such. For more information, for a catalogue or to find out where to buy, you can go to http://www.usbbelkin.com or you can call the 800.2Belkin toll free number. If you want to comparison shop, the Internet lists other companies that make USB devices. However, Belkin is my preference so far. This company is involved in all sorts of new devices from power supplies to surge protectors. Belkin products are well made and widely used.
@ Copyright 2000 Shirley Camper Soman