Alone in the Crowd: Romance & Politics in the Era of the Internet.

I was just down in the grocery store and
I felt ever so slightly ashamed of myself for being kinda underdressed and as you see unshaven and it just occurred to me these same people in this grocery store as weeks turn into months and as months turns into years they're gonna see me again again and a minimum the security guards at the front of the grocery store organizing it's probably probably some of the customers I only have that bold guy I booked it in before hey you know what probably I should make a little bit more of an effort with my physical appearance when going to the grocery store Thursday but looking around it really struck me that none of these people at my grocery store many of whom are young and attractive and seemingly unmarried you know the married couples you see us you know they're they're embarrassed none of them are looking at one another as anything other than an obstacle to getting the next item off the next shelf in the next aisle and I don't just mean there's like a difference in the vibe between this grocery store and say hanging out at a nightclub or going to eight singles night at the Buddhist the Buddhist studies research facility at Oxford University or Cambridge let me tell you something there's some but this is a really eager eye contact going around when you're now when you're doing research and Buddhist philosophy you know there's a contrast from what was going on at this grocery store and what I've been familiar with in recent days and weeks just hanging around airports hanging around on buses and boats and trains because you know partly just out of boredom like when I was when I was on the boat coming from the mainland to Vancouver Island I got seriously interested eye contact from members the opposite sex and you know I mean whatever it's partly the intense period of boredom of them waiting on that boat to get to the other side and their imaginations are in a while or whatever they got nothing better to look at I'm not that flattered by it but it really occurred to me visibly and invisibly the way people live their lives is transformed because of the technology of the cellular phone if any of these people wanted to put themselves in the frame of mind to meet somebody new whether as a friend as a boyfriend as a girlfriend or as a possible future husband or wife they would take out their phone and start flipping through social media whether that be a dating app or something like Facebook that's not expressly for dating but can be used for dating whether it be tinder or Bumble or whatever the software the future is that competes in this category right even while they're standing there at the grocery store while they're standing a line whatever if they're mine if their imagination starts to turn in that direction they're gonna direct that energy in that interest into their cell phone and not into the other the eyes of the other strangers who happen to be standing around them happened to be picking these out of the store show hey look there are advantages and there are disadvantages it's somewhat funny to me that people meet me on the internet and think I'm short beep based on it based on a photograph whether it's on tinder or a video Kieran on YouTube you don't know how tall somebody is when people meet me in real life the first thing they know about me is my height right even they don't think about it even you'll really notice okay I'm six foot three in the morning when I get into bed if I'm hunched over and tired by the end of the day I'm more like six foot two by the way well you can lose an inch as the day wears on um you know the tone of my voice probably the main thing that makes a first impression of someone meeting in real life is the way I speak especially there slang words English my presenters someone could get to know me and people did my first wife when my first wife met me she met me entirely in terms of texts I'd written on the internet and a few still photographs at that time there was no video of me on the internet there was no there were no voice clips communion right she didn't know my tone of voice she didn't know that stuff the way somebody walks their physicality the what it feels like to have eye contact with them alright in some ways if you meet someone at the grocery store you actually know a lot about them that's meaningful and relevant to whether or not you feel attracted them that you can't learn over the internet or you don't learn easily not even through tinder not even through Facebook so there is something there is something being lost but what I want to draw attention this video is there's something being lost at both ends right like it's not just this this so-called pickup artist stereotype that changes like I think like the the chakras themselves and even this question I started with should I make a bigger effort to get dressed to go to the grocery store like I don't think people are motivated to do that anymore because if they were gonna make an effort to get dressed they'd get dressed for Instagram they get dressed for tinder or Facebook they'd get dressed to present themselves on social media because that's what they're gonna meet new people whether those be friends or romantic connections or what have you there's no point getting dressed to go to the grocery store I knew a guy who was a real estate agent so this conversation was more than 20 years ago when he was probably talking about what life was like when he was single ten years before that or something and he just said to me straight up that when he's in New York City he goes to all the bookstores to meet women and he was just joking in this Semyon he was exaggerating rather than joking he said who the hell goes to a bookstore to buy books he said when he's in New York City he goes he goes to meet women and when he goes he feels the women are their consumers you know what he's going these bookstores and all parties know this is a so to a place people get dressed up to go to the bookstore you probably stand there and you pick you're looking at books that don't make you look dumb there's probably a performative aspect of this but people were going to these social spaces with this preconceived notion so melissa is off camera near melissa two of your grandparents met as complete strangers at a train station and so the man who became your grandfather just straight-up hollered at your grandmother a meal sorry in modern parlance you know okay you look good what's up you know whatever I don't know what pick-up line to use right there's meaning but like you know it's not just that it takes two to tango it takes a whole culture built around that a whole set of expectations which probably includes what you wear when you go to the train station and mentally how prepared you are to talk to strangers it looks like and one of the reasons why I tell people not to do this pickup artist [ __ ] and by the way I've been in the position of women trying to pick me up and I'm like you have no idea what's on my mind you have no idea what I'm dealing with you have no idea how poor family uninterested I am in being flirted with or flattered or dealing with you today lady and it doesn't even matter how good-looking or it's like that's my mindset because I'm dealing with stuff you don't even know but like these people at the grocery store they are not gonna be in a frame of mind to meet you and get to know you and get to know somebody which is fine it's totally your right you know but again when Melissa's grandparents were young they were going to the train station and they were probably going to the grocery store or the market that might actually gee I didn't even think of this for turning on the camera but you know so when ID humanitarian work in Laos I was in one of the last parts of the world with intact rainforest jungle it was being cut down day by day I saw the jungle being cut down I was in one of the last parts of the world with no electricity and no internet and really zero telecommunications there on the border between Laos and Myanmar some people were living in tribal conditions some people were living in more village conditions you went to I went to a market this market was nothing but bamboo shacks sheds for people to display there were can't even I don't want to describe very very simple very primitive bamboo structures in the middle of the jungle and there's the river on one side people come upon their boats so there was and you know all the young people from miles around would come there to meet new boyfriends and girlfriends and you know in this culture in these primitive conditions you're talking about like 15 year-olds you know which because they get married at 16 and 17 and something you know so they're dating at 15 and then they're getting married young and again this is one of the not even maybe the big cities in Laos something like that that's the real countryside where people are still it's not just that they're farmers they're still hunters and gatherers and you know they come and they come to the market you'd see them glancing each other you know we saw this is one of the reasons because otherwise they're living in complete isolation just with their family on the top of a mountain or sometimes literally in a cave or what have you I just say these are the last people in the world those conditions so obviously if you go back to medieval Europe or something it's gonna be even more extreme this is your chance to meet and interact with a stranger period so mentally get yourself you know into a space where you're gonna meet someone to introduce yourself and learn who they are a song but if you're not going out with that energy if you're not going with that but this is what I thought it before during on the campus that I didn't think it this is what I really want to talk about was there was a time when I traveled the world and everywhere I went people asked me for directions and they always wanted more than directions you know I'd be living in VN Chen the capital city of Laos and French tourists would come up to me and say hi you know do you know the way to the Military Museum and I said oh yes the Military Museum I know it and I described and it's not that easy to get to your discovery of it and then the French tourists would say oh I can tell you live here you know like you're not just tourists like me tell me how long have you lived here why didn't you choose silver they would really want to get to you as the sources and information obviously I'm a white english-speaking person living there I'm not just a local person what kind of work do you do here and you know and sometimes didn't want to invite you to have coffee or have pizza or what have you and maybe twice I pretended to be Russian and that I didn't speak English well sir asking you for help this way because I had other things to do I really what didn't want to hang around but you know my point is not just that you know the Mac applications on cellphones like Google Maps Apple maps it's not just that those have removed the necessity for people to ask for directions but parallel to the change in the look in people's eyes when they go grocery shopping then now grocery shopping is just about groceries right in the same way now when I travel nobody's trying to meet anybody nobody's trying to socialize think we're not even like at a hostel not even at like a social space at a hostel not even Hugh sign up for a group tour I can remember that I remember you sign up for group tour where they explain the history of you other people were there to meet you know who else is living who else interests in this history there was more of a social element today if they want that they're joining a Facebook group or they're signing up for something on the internet when they put themselves in the frame of mind to introduce themselves and say hey that's who I am who are you to get to know people they're doing that entirely on the internet not face-to-face not in real life so I mean to an increasing extent I've got to tell you world travel has become a lonely isolated and isolated pastime you know and it used to be it really used to be again I was someone who knew the local language and I knew the history and I knew the cola text and I lived there and work there but I mean it used to be if I made my way past say three train stops in Thailand like I was going up to who bond ratchathani in one of these obscure places a whole long series of people would have conversations with me and that would sometimes include other white people who had chosen to live there permanently you know foreigners were there temporarily as tourists who could include by the way Chinese or Japanese tourists would have to include local people there was this whole kind of range of characters and it's true I'd have to kind of mentally you know you couldn't be too tired or crabby or something I even at the train station he wasn't sitting down waiting for gin can I have to mentally prepare yourself you know for the social aspect of travel of course at the hotel in any of those public spaces you know and that is draining out of public life and they look I said earlier there are certain things you learn about somebody meeting them face to face in a grocery store that you wouldn't learn right away on social media their height the tone of their voice but look in their eye the eye contact there's certain things you pick up on okay the other thing you learn is they live in your neighborhood and we all know the ultimate absurdity of making friends the Internet is you might meet the most fascinating person in the world but they Lea they live 3,000 kilometers away or 2,000 miles away or whatever the case may be so what's the point right someone you maybe have half as much in common with but who goes to your grocery store it's probably you know more worth knowing for you so you know in many ways I revel in the advantages of this new digital age I think it's great that I'm not stuck being friends with the schlemiel who happened to be assigned to the same classroom I was assigned to in high school you know where that's your only social you so that whole life and it's so hard to to make it as you said that if I were to list off the people I actually had meaningful conversations with this week Melissa I only know because the internet Mohammed I only know because the internet talked to Genevieve's a little bit talk to Adrian maybe it's hard to warm to other people I'm not remembering here all of you I only know you because the Internet I don't think I had a conversation with a single person this week yeah I did talk to God like though I didn't talk to a single person this week whom I met in the gloom I know today for any reason other than the Internet so my social circles have pieced together both you know close friends and distant acquaintances and what have you they're all they're all the result of the internet and I do value it positively but you've been watching this channel for a while you know that where this is going sociability isn't just linked to your sex life it's also in a really powerful and important way linked to political engagement an organisation to make the world a better place or a different place and there are so many issues I do care about even here in Western Canada but I don't have the critical mass of like five people who live here and care about the future of this neighborhood and this grocery store for me to get organized and go to City Hall or get organized and start a charity here do something I mean that's our the most obvious issue here is the drug drug addiction epidemic you know it would be easier for me to organize a bunch of white people who care about the future of Cambodia I could do that today I have the connectors of the internet at the baccarat ministry I know there are some seemingly obscure issues where the specialists and the people were passionate motivators spread all around the world like veganism probably easier for me to do a fundraiser form something within veganism today then to organise something in my community is centered around one grocery store and one police station you know with all the finitude of it for me to get to know five people who can find some time to make something happen here I was invited to give a lecture at a major vegan and animal rights conference in New York City I appreciate the invitation one of the most important reasons why I wouldn't spend the time and money to do that is that it's in New York City so there's no way I can make the connections and collaborate with people in a way that's really getting matter to my life and our lives positively there's no real chance of me making the kind of connection which is possible even if incredibly unlikely when I'm standing there in the grocery store and I'm looking at the shelf full of frozen vegan junk food and someone else comes up next to me and they're getting said Oh I'm vegan you're vegan too