We’re on(line)!

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

IN a conversation on FB Messenger, a crying emoticon popped up on my screen:

“Akin, man-akis ka?” (Why are you crying?)

“Akisian la may boyfriend ko, Ma’am.” (My boyfriend broke off with me, Ma’am.)

Siopa? (Who?)

“Amay Friend ko ed Facebook.” (My Friend at Facebook.)

Impawil mo la may singsing to? (Did you return his ring?)

“Andi, Ma’am, nan-pm ya anggapo kami la kuno.” (No, Ma’am, he just sent me a private message that we no longer have a relationship.)

Profound changes in the way we meet our partners have occurred in the last few years, inching their way unnoticed, in our daily lives. The Digital Age had changed the mode of courtships, as well as relationships, especially among millennials. The usual places to meet partners were normally among friends and family, at work or in school. According to “Disintermediating your friends: How Online Dating in the United States displaces other ways of meeting”, a 2017 study by sociologists Michael Rosenfeld and Sonia Hausen of Stanford University and Reuben Thomas of University of New Mexico, almost forty percent (40%) of couples in the US met online.

The same study observed that more than sixty percent (60%) of same-sex couples met in the same manner, making online dating the most common way that American couples now meet their partners. “The data also show that between 1995 to 2017, meeting through friends saw the largest decline, from 33% of couples at the start of the period to just 20% at the end.”

As of June 2019, there are over 2.41 billion monthly active users (MAU) of Facebook, and an average of 1.59 billion people log onto their accounts daily. In January 2019, there were almost 75 million Facebook users in the Philippines (ranked 6^th among MAUs worldwide), accounting for 68.5% of the Philippine population, majority of them women (52.6%). About 25 million of these users were aged 18 to 24, the largest user group. Recent reports also showed “Filipinos spend the most time on the internet and on social media sites.” Another report, the Digital 2019: Global Digital Overview showed Filipinos spend an average of 10 hours, 2 minutes on the internet via any device.

In all likelihood, the findings of the initial study cited is true for the Philippines: We are dating online.

Parting

i saw you leaving
quietly
hurriedly
like a fart
imploding
impatiently
to be born

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