I'm back, as promised. I've collected my thoughts on this article I linked in the previous post and am still inspired to Keep it Real. If you have anything to share about your own reaction to the article or to my post, I would love to hear it (via comments or email).
Women and Internet Addiction, Part 2: Who is likely to get addicted and where are their friends?
Who are these addicts and why are they addicted?
The article talks mostly about new moms being addicted to the internet, but I think this must extend to a majority of women, more so those in long term relationships.
Why women?
Simply - I feel women have a greater need to talk and bond.
An example to illustrate the point I want to make: About 8 months ago when my mom was staying with us, I left Ro with her in the living room and went to join MrM in the patio. As I neared him, I said "Ro is with his best friend, so I thought I would hang out with mine." He paused and clarified that he means to be a husband and not a best friend to me.
Despite what World's Best Fairy Tales tells us, a lot of women are not married to their best friends, men to want to throw them birthday parties, dream together about future vacations. Instead, we might be married to men who fix our ovens, clean our gutters, agree to come along on vacations & social events we plan, and audibly sigh in relief when we tell them we aren't expecting a "push present" for our maiden voyage into motherhood. Conversations might be limited to non-emotional or non-contentious topics like an article in the Wall Street Journal or the latest trend in microprocessors. Where then, do you unburden your heart?
What about real friends?
Here is where I think the article wasn't right in saying internet addiction is a new-mom thing. I think it is a woman-in-relationship thing.
As soon as you are in a long term relationship, you stop having 1-1 girl time with your friends. We have "couple friends" and however close you are to them, there are always 4 people in the room and often 2 of them are men (unless all 4 are lesbians but it isn't applicable to me). I'm sure if you work part time or not at all, you will find other girlfriends to talk to during the day. But if, like me, you work a full day, there isn't much of a chance to hang out with girlfriends. I do this (girl-time) once a month at book club and you can bet I am not talking about anything gnawing at my heart.
I used to do lunches with girlfriends, but it started getting harder and harder to do, and I hated switching modes to girl talk in the middle of the day and only to return to work all frazzled from it. It is like going to a therapist right before a meeting and having all your deep insecurities needled up to the surface in time to face a room full of people.
All said and done, I don't think I've had time to open my heart to any of my friends in a long time. Perhaps the last I can remember was when I was struggling to get pregnant and I used to go on walks with one of my friends, talking with her about it. I am sure I owe some of my sanity to her.
Not only does life not afford you the chance to talk to someone, it doesn't even give you the chance to be by yourself and clear your head. I drop off and pick up my baby from daycare on my commute, so I feel I've even lost the option of being alone by my own choice before I get home to switch into my second job there.
Where do the men go to talk?
I've established a case for women to explain why they need to find something outside their four walls and often in the ether of the web. But what do men do? A few days ago I was feeling lonely and starved for conversation. It was late at night and I rolled over to ask my husband what he did when he needed someone to talk to. He said he didn't talk and the feeling would be gone in a day. Needless to say, he didn't ask back "What about you, Meera?". So it appears that it might be more of a female need to talk things out and not "forget about it" or "stop digging into it".
(Ed: I've decided to break this post up here. In the third & last part I will go into my internet weaknesses, my attempts at fighting it with non-internet activities, and my new non-internet addiction.)
1 comment:
I've been chewing on these three posts for some days now and how it pertains to me - thanks so much for these thoughtful posts.
For more than a decade, I've been happily coupled up with the same person, but I have just as more 1-1 girl time then before I met the boy (due to having a life post-college). I do notice, however, that a lot of my girlfriends are single, and that it is more difficult to make plans with my partnered friends. One reason is that my unsingle friends will often change plans if their partner wants to do something with them instead. I'm not really sure why this is a trend, but it is.
The boy, however, seemed to have little to no 1-1 guy time until recently. Now that he is hanging out with the guys more, I can tell that he is much happier. But, it's not like he talks about his feelings or anything like that! He'll talk to me about things, but it seems like he and his buddies chat about their shared activities.
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