Valentine’s Day: Skip the Fancy Dinners & Skype Instead
My husband Peter and I love the outdoors: hikes in dense forests, ice-cold dips in rivers, tangerine sunsets. We were even married underneath a canopy of redwoods in California’s wine country.
But, instead of a nature excursion this Valentine’s Day we are going into separate rooms in our apartment to Skype…with each other.
Technology is the supposed killer of sex lives. The glow of the iPhone screen has replaced conversation and connection. There’s even a catch-all term for it: Phubbing, the act of snubbing our partner in favor of our phone.
In a 2016 study by Brigham Young University, 143 women reported that technology negatively disrupted their relationships. And the more a woman’s partner used his smartphone, the more she reported feelings of depression.
But technology isn’t always the bad guy in the relationship. In our love affair, it has long been used as a funnel for focus.
In the early days of our relationship Peter and I were long distance. I was a video journalist based in Hong Kong and he was a professor tenured to a college in the San Francisco Bay Area. We knew we had to do something to sustain our connection.
And so began our weekly ritual: Skype Sundays. We would Skype for hours. The conversation always began with a fit of colorful updates on our week. The time difference spiced things up: Often I’d have my morning coffee as he was sipping his evening martini. Even so, we were on the same wavelength.
After a few hours, we’d proceed to leave the Skype screen on as if it were the fourth wall. We cooked together, did laundry, read a book, basically went about our lives. Blurts of conversation or questions would seep into the gaps. Sometimes one of us would catch the other staring and we’d smile. But often there was silence; an overriding sense of just being together.
We eventually ended up in the same city, got married, had a beautiful baby boy and life motored forward. Eventually parenthood and work consumed us. These days our attempts to converse are comedic. It’s hard to have a heart-to-heart at the dinner table when your curious five year old has an urgent question about…cyborgs.
That fact is, when you’re with each other it’s very easy to take one another for granted. To co-exist and, in bouts of exhaustion, retreat to your mobile at day’s end. Date nights are great but half the time is spent on small talk: what will you order, what do you think of this restaurant, could those handsy teenagers at the next table get a room already?
So, we’re bringing the spark back baby. On February 14th we will Skype. I’ll ring my husband up from the next room, ask him how he’s doing, stare at his facial features, and, at last, really listen.
