As a sequel to my “Love in the Time of Terrorism” post I wanted to offer up this new one based upon a Wall Street Journal article published today titled, “‘Til Tech Do Us Part.” Although it does not specifically cite any South Asian peeps in the article, I am sure you can all agree that it is quite relevant to a great many of us (and probably tech-savvy SM readers more so than most). Here is the oh-so-juicy synopsis of the article:
Joint bank account? Check. Merging the MP3 collection? Hold on a minute. Couples are struggling with just how much to combine the digital aspects of their lives. Why spouses are bickering over shared email accounts and his-and-hers blogs. [Link]
It’s true, it’s sooo true. This is why our parents generation just cannot understand why we sometimes (well some of us) wait so long to get married. It is no longer a question of simply making sure that your prospective wife comes from a good family and that at least one of her siblings is a doctor if she failed to become one herself. No. There is the MP3 collection-compatibility-issue that is a constant cloud which hangs over many of our serial dating lives. God forbid she leaves behind an Ipod in my car and I accidentally play Akon or Fergie when there are people around who might judge me. “I listen to Kings of Leon. I swear.” What if she bookmarks the NYPost whereas I bookmark the NYTimes? Does she pay attention to RottenTomatoes.com like I do or does she just go to the movies and blindly hope for the best like some crazy free spirit? Getting to know someone and fall in love just takes a lot more research these days.
To stay on pace during his five-mile jogging workouts, Olav Junttila keeps his iPod stocked with fast, thumping electronic music. But an unwelcome sound has been intruding on his daily runs: Britney Spears singing her bubble-gum hit “Oops, I Did It Again.”
The culprit is Mr. Junttila’s wife, Katie. Her musical taste differs, but instead of setting up a separate music library in iTunes, she mixes her Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake purchases in with his picks. “I’m going, ‘Where’d this song come from? I don’t even like this song,’ ” says Mr. Junttila, a 34-year-old New York investment banker. [Link]
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Then, of course, the article moves on to an issue even more troubling than music and one that I lie awake at nights stressing about. Yep. Blogs.
The growth of blogging is responsible for many marital flare-ups. James Griffioen and his wife, Sara Woodward, decided to start a blog together after they had their first child. They were inspired by other couples who were blogging about their newborns.
They agreed to give each other veto power over posts, which he exercised when she wanted to shout out into the blogosphere about his failure to do the dishes. “That’s a real sensitive issue,” says Mr. Griffioen, 30, who cares for the couple’s 2-year-old daughter at their home in Detroit. Readers of the site, sweetjuniper.blogspot.com, would have blown it out of proportion, he says: “They’re going to turn it into this whole thing of how I don’t keep up my end of the relationship…” [Link]
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Sweet Jezzus. Abhi’s first rule of Blog Club is: NEVER mix blogging with pleasure (unless you have a weak will and it just happens). You would be freaking nuts to blog with your husband/wife.
“Honey, what did you think of my post on our blog? It was the bomb, right?”
“Ummmm.”
I wonder, just how common is this sort of digital angst among our readers? Here are some anecdotes. I know that SM contributing writer Cicatrix and Mr. Cicatrix have left comments on the same thread using different computers in different rooms at the same time. I also know that on a couple of occasions a commenter has emailed us because we banned their significant other/roomate who they share a computer with and they wanted us to lift the ban so as not to punish the innocent one (who still wanted to comment) too.
The bottom line is that I think it is okay to take your time and really understand if your blogs and your mp3 collections (we didn’t even talk about TiVO) are compatible before committing. Forever.
Note: For those interested there is a podcast of this story at WSJ.
Oh Abhi! you are so good at highlighting problems of our lives.
Awww shucks. I just try to provide a voice to the voiceless. 😉
Any person knows that you can decide which songs and playlists you want to synch manually and not automatically. The mixing of his and her songs on his iPod is either laziness or not being tech-saavy enough to figure that out.
But I do think it’s true that managing the digital music library could be a little tricky since more than likely spouses are going to have differing music tastes. I doubt my hypothetical husband will have the same guilty pleasure of Bollywood Pop that I do:P
As far as blogging, why would you want to put your marriage out there for other people to dissect? I agree with that guy not wanting to have his not washing the dishes all over the net. Frankly a blog about someone else’s newborn seems as interesting as being forced to watch the Mahbarat TV serial everyday for your 1990 summer break.
Are you single? I like bad girls.
Never mind. 😉
What happens when they support different teams? Mets, Yankees?? Utd, City? Toon, Black Cats?
Would someone just think of the children!!
what about the homepage for their internet browser
come to think of it, what if one prefers IE over Firefox.. oh the horror
I am all for joint bank accounts and sharing money. Music collection and the link to my blog… NOT
I’ve read your blog Gulti girl. You have nothing to fear 🙂
I don’t know any married couples with a joint email account – that is just taking togetherness too far!
I highly doubt when I get married I will have a joint account with my husband, unless it is one just set up for bills etc.
Mr. Ahbi, you are being quite snarky today 😉
Could it be because there is no Mrs. Abhi linking to your blog?
When Abhi comes home from work early because he is sick he becomes snarky. I licked an ice sculpture at a wedding this weekend which in hindsight was really stupid.
Joint bank account, email, blog, playlist? No. Naheen. Nein. Nyet.
“I licked an ice sculpture at a wedding this weekend which in hindsight was really stupidâ€.
What was the sculpture?
i can’t wait to see what YoDad has to say
A peacock.
Computer related ED is primary cause for increase in divorce rate in Bangalore.
But Mr. Abhi, you couldn’t have gotten sick from licking an ice sculpture (though it does sound like a crazy wedding if you were doing that).
It must have been from making out with the bride’s father’s cousins’s daughter at the receiption 😉
Sorry, that’s my last comment off-topic.
Seeing as I’m single, I can’t really know what I’ll do to meld my life togher with my hypothetical husband’s. But of all my married friends, they each have their own email accounts, iPods and seeing as none of them blog that isn’t an issue. I do recall some arguments over what gets deleted on the TiVo, so that seems valid. I just think with people waiting to get longer to get married, everyone already has their own stuff, so it isn’t really an issue per se.
Forgot to include quote from article
“Viewing the computer for long hours has proven to cause impotency,” she adds. She also says the commission is planning to visit the IT companies and take stock of the situation.
Re: 5
Injuries “happen”. I know of at least one Bengali couple (she was a fan of Argentina, he of Brazil) where watching the live telecast of a football (soccer) match led to his visiting the ER (she had a frying-pan, he ended up with a bandaged head).
“A peacockâ€
ok…..well…. as long as you learned sir. 😉
Bengali couple?? That much passion about Brazil and Argentina?
aah yes this is a toughy. I can understand sharing joint accounts provided you have your own account as well, share the ipod but not folders, share blog – uh..no please don’t share blogs unless you get along famously all the time, everyday, everyhour of your lives.
I think sharing online personas (music, photographs, books, travel journals, etc.) to find your partner is a neat idea – is there an online dating site that does that? But in the end nothing beats a personal connection…ofcourse.
Another awesome post. 😀 My personal issue – when the boy comes over and uses my computer. As awesome as he is, I still feel silly when he uses my browser and laughs at the smattering of completely random blogs I follow (SM not included!), or browses through my mp3 collection which includes (shudder) Britney Spears and ABBA from before middle school (along with better stuff…I swear). It’s always a good laugh though.
I would have loved to hear the explanation they gave to the ER personnel about the injury. Does it count as soccer violence? Come to think of it, why was this not on local news or on Dave Barry’s blog?
I can put up with different musical tastes if I am not forced to go along with it. For this to work, you need to have a non clingy partner who can indulge in his or her tastes with friends. And I refuse to subject myself to a movie directed by Nora Ephron or Nancy Myers. It is more painful than watching a Bollywood movie with Shah Rukh Khan. I think being married to a vegan would be pretty tough for me unless she is great in every other aspect and has no problem with my carnivorous preferences. BUt it would make eating out tough. I would have to be really smitten with her to get over that.
I do not understand how Carville and Matalin stay married. It’s one thing to root for different parties. But the stuff they have to say on a daily basis about how wretched the other side is makes the mind boggle how they can respect each other the next day.
Interreligious must be tough too if at least one of the parties is very serious about his or her religion. I am agnostic Hindu. So I would need to meet someone secular(I rarely have the chance to meet a hindu who is unmarried and not related to me).
Re: 23
Probably because it occurred in Bangladesh (I read it in a Bangladeshi daily) several years ago. Oddly enough, despite the fact that the Bangladeshi national football (soccer) team sucks, Bangladeshis are mad about the beautiful game — to the point that every four years, when the World Cup rolls around, students go on strike to postpone their exams so that they can stay up late to watch the live telecasts. And executives and workers of power plants get preemptive threats about what might happen to them if a power outage occurs during a telecast.
Pravin – where do you live for this to be the case? Just curious 🙂
Dear Blog,
The
old haglong-suffering woman that I am married to has beenpesteringasking me in herclingy emotionalendearing way for joint access onmyour blog. Seeing as I am at the end of mypatienceabstinence, I have decided to give this to her so I can get some change fromher incessant squealinghow lonely my blog feels.Sincerely, Pingpong and Mrs Pong
Ahhhh…the digital compactibility in the age of DRM,Blue-ray, HD-DVD,etc. I always had “great concern” about my digital compatibility – mp3s, podcasts, feedreader, blog, digital camera, PS2/ Xbox games including the dreaded question “Which Operating System do you use?”.
Windows – boring; go away MAC – nice! wanna iDate? Is that a Ubuntu/Linux distro on your laptop? 🙂 exec marriage -t now
My friend, Eric, recently got married. He is a linux loving geek, admin, gamer, pro virtual-life and online-life. His wife is a MAC OS loving artist, creating and collecting virtual arts and photography. To bring in some sanity in their digital life, they now have:
He spent last 3 months setting up all these and he is not yet done. Oh, he also spent thousdands of dollars. What a nightmare! He might be asking himself “Why did I fall in love with this woman?”
Mutineers, don’t underestimate the power of digital compactibility.
Sorry…please kill me for my typo…what did I smoke? “compactibility”….kill me…
thats why you need Firefox; it has a nifty little feature that starts putting re squigglies under mis-spelt names..I know I know geeky
I mean mis-spelt words.. 😀
Gosh!
Re Babu@28 and your totally breathtaking list,
Is it necessary to link stuff in the first place? I mean, what’s wrong with leaving all Ipods and video game consoles and computers separate, then just using the other person’s stuff when they need to listen to or play or run something? Do they also try to share all the food they order at restaurants? What is going on here: is it acceptance or celebration or denial of differences?
I collect vinyl so its all good.
Re: Babu @ 28
It seems like your friends would never have time to meet physically in person because they both are “virtually” too busy with all their gadgets, game-playing, blogging, music-listening, TiVoing and NetFlixing.
Do they have virtual sex too?
Ok, that was just snarky I know, but the list was begging for that question!
Abhi: Beware spaceman, while you’re sitting at top of the technology food chain the occupational hazards amplify dude.
I wonder what they bickered about, maybe who got to spend more hours in a simulator, or practice time with a robotic arm? Novak must realized the other lady was sharing her, um, tech toys more generously with Mr. Oefelein…
B.I.G., Atlanta. My social circle does not include Indians. I do meet a lot of them frequently, they just happen to be family or friends of the family.
I think my participation here is my biggest interaction with other Indians.
I think the sports teams would be awful. During the last world cup my coworker and I were cheering for different teams, and I couldn’t talk to him for a week (I was so angry). Although IE? Really?! I would just die.
Shaad, it sounds like my kind of country 🙂 South Africa 2010, anyone?
Amen, sister!
Ooo, Pravin, you should meet my friends from the Hotlanta ‘burbs — I’m pretty sure they’re not related to you 🙂 Or, better yet, I think you should move to the Bay Area. That way you would have several restaurant options that serve meat and vegan possibilities (including “meatless chicken”… mmm, my favorite).
I think it would be hard to be with someone whose musical taste I HATED, though. I’m someone who listens to music constantly (at work, while I cook, while I clean, at the gym, sometimes to go to sleep), so that would kind of make it difficult. Even with headphones 🙁
I don’t understand this need to meld everything together, though. Why on earth would I want a joint email account or joint blog? Puh-lease!
I believe in the following maxims wrt to relationships – opposites attract, friction is fun…too much smooth sailing is boring. Oh not to mention I enjoy “kichdi”.. so Abhi’s concerns doesn’t worry me too much.
I know, tell me about it.
Some of the stories in WSJ article are just old fashioned insecurities wrapped in new wrapper.
Camille, As someone who mainlines music all the time, let me say this. Music is important and overrated at the same time. My wife hates majority of my collection. No big deal. I am w/ you on rest of the stuff though.
” Why on earth would I want a joint email account…”
Sadly Camille, I have had 4 friends (men + women) who have busted their spouses for cheating with these. So sad, but so true. Emails started off at work, but then laziness set in, allowing the cheaters to be caught…and divorced. Not sure if I would want shared accounts either, but after seeing what my friends have gone through, Pavlovian conditioning might set in fear of not knowing.
But Saira, how does that prevent the person from having their own email account? I know that folks break up over these sorts of things all the time, but I the trade-off doesn’t seem worth it to me. Doesn’t a joint email, under those circumstances, imply that you don’t trust your partner?
Shodan, thanks. I should have rephrased — I’m more worried about someone hating MY taste in music, but who knows, maybe it’s not important after all 🙂
i found this article rather amusing when i read it. when i brought it up with my dad, he said ‘they’re all bloody fools, kanna – couples fighting over the internet. btw, what are these blogs?’ i’m glad to see SM appropriated a desi angle to it 🙂
Ipod-mania is something I can never understand – coz I am tone deaf and have never owned a music system or a tape / cd. Any other tone deaf mutineers who have zero interest in music?
To prevent wild distortion.
You know what my pet peeve is? When my SO’s bittorrent download bandwidth sucks up almost all of my ISP’s downstream bandwidth, and causes high TCP packet losses on my itunes purchases, while causing bursty silences on my VoIP calls using skype? It forces me to put in priority rules in my iptables and mark peer-to-peer packets so they get shovelled into a less than fair share queue so that my latency sensitive traffic is not affected. I know all of you are nodding with me so far in full agreement, and saying, “I’ve been there.”
Also, what if you use MSN messenger and she uses gtalk? Or you use Verizon and she uses Cingular, and you can’t talk for free except on weekends and nights?
Camille, sorry I wasn’t clear. Joint accounts didn’t prevent them from having their own accounts. They did, and then they were discovered with the quick closing of thw windows, etc. In other words, the cheaters were caught with their correspondence in their own accounts, i.e by leaving the email account open, the MSN chat window open, trails through history, etc. My though was having a joint account implied I trust you enough to share my emails. I once shared an account with an ex, and once when he opened an email, he didn’t expect it to be from a fling he had at an Indian conference, with the gal encouraging him to break up with me, and pursue someone with a similar background. I wouldn’t have found out about the fling, unless I hadn’t been sitting in his lap reading the very same email alongside him.
I’m just wondering if having a joint account keeps the comm. open between couples, or leads to such illicit discoveries. I wouldn’t want one, as it’s just as tacky as wearing his/hers sweaters over Christmas dinner, but then again, does having one mean we can share everything?
Dear Agony Aunt Abby,
When you break up, how do you split your itunes library? At least with books, you can put your names in so you know whose is whose. ‘Cause someday, believe it or not, you’ll go 15 rounds over who’s gonna get this Toby Keith single. This stupid, wagon wheel, Roy Rogers, 99 cent RED, WHITE AND BLUE.
I don’t want to reveal too many details of my modus operandi, but I have found that nothing fortifies trust better than installing a spyware keystroke logger. It is much more reliable and far less time consuming than building an actual emotional bond.
Ha Rahul! That’s exactly how one of my friends got busted. Said he didn’t keep a separate account, but cheap software proved otherwise.
Rahul, you are cracking me up!:-D