2-3-4 Friday

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

After hearing the feedback of some readers, over the next few weeks, we are adjusting the newsletter to include more of the stories I hear when I interview people, and the lessons from them.

2 weeks ago, we interviewed Zhi Qun, the cofounder of a blind dating agency Kopi Date, in Singapore.

If you don’t know what that is, they basically match customers to each other, set up the date, and give you a series of questions to ask each other during the date.

You would have thought that wouldn’t work in modern societies, where we can have the pick of anyone.

Hold on, hold on. I know you’re tempted to close this, and say,

I’m attached. What does this have to do with me?

Starting out this agency was surprisingly successful, with many signing up because they were tired of having to swipe and text.

Two things struck me.

Firstly, that their motto was ‘humanising connections’.

When you can practically text the 708 people in your phonebook, ‘hi, hi, hi’, why don’t we feel the deep sense of belonging from having such a surfeit of choice in our relationships?

Because texting connects, but may not communicate.

This plays out most clearly in the dating app, where every date is reduced to 6 photos, and a series of pithy quotes on their outlook of life.

What’s your favourite book?

What kind of person are you looking for?

You thus become a piece of meat people scroll through.

Secondly, it’s because text reveals a clean, edited impression of someone. Most younger people do that well, with the emojis and the rapid replies. Some can’t (or don’t want to).

And so Kopi Date thought it would be better to just put two strangers in a room together, and let the magic happen.

This plays out too in your personal relationships.

You may have a short burst of text bubbles to each other. But after it, you may not necessarily feel the warmth that comes from sharing emotionally with someone.

The phone filters that out.

Rather than texting, why not take time to ask someone out for real, face to face coffee?

But we don’t because technology convinces us that the mimicry of a WhatsApp ‘conversation’ will do.

It won’t do.

1 talk

We have agreed to a series of experiments: robots for children and the elderly, technologies that denigrate and deny privacy, seductive simulations that propose themselves as places to live.

We deserve better.

When we remind ourselves that it is we who decide how to keep technology busy, we shall have better.

Sherry Turkle, in Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

1 tip

Secondly, one of their go-to principles is to have ‘zero expectations’. Most (okay, maybe just me) go into dates with a laundry list of qualities we need the partner to have.

Unfortunately we take that into our friendships too. We hope our friend can ask us how’s our day, to validate us, to celebrate who we are as human beings, to help us grow, and to even pay for brunch.

It may not always happen.

Having zero expectations may leave us perpetually feeling like zombies, and not having something to look forward to.

What’s better is to be mindful of what our expectations are.

We are surprised when we have expectations, and someone goes above and beyond those initial expectations.

Better relationships thus start from recognising the poor mimicry that technology offers, and being willing to make something better of our relationships.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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