Digital Love: Keats’ Poems and Kissing Pigs

Texting “I love you” has a lot less passion than saying it face to face. Currently, relationships seem to only gain validity when they become Facebook official. Fate has even been thrown out when love can be pursued through various dating websites like eHarmony or Match.com. Technology is quickly taking hold of how we go about dating, and I have to ask myself, where did the romance go?

I remember the first time a boyfriend said “I love you” to me. I was a junior in high school and we had only been dating for about a month (granted, that might seem premature to some). I was ecstatic to hear those words for the first time and completely overwhelmed with the feeling of love. Too bad that I did not actually hear those words; I read them through a text message. Not so surprisingly, my first love fell short and we broke up before we even made it two months. I made sure that the next time I would utter that phrase, I would say it in person.

I confess, I’m a bit of a romantic. Maybe I read too many of Keats’s love poems and I adore Romeo and Juliet. Part of me wishes that we still lived in a time where love letters were valued and where we left relationships to fate. What I am quickly learning, however, is that technology is rapidly altering traditional courtship altogether. Forget Byron and Keats. Professing love through tweets or sending kisses by robots is the future.

Welcome Kissenger (or kiss messenger), a small robot that simulates the feeling of a real kiss. For couples suffering from distance, the strangely adorable pig or cow-shaped robot can accompany you and your significant other on Skype. Kissing the Kissenger will have your partner’s bot simulate your actions, creating the feeling that the two of you are actually receiving a real kiss. Strange? Yes, but Hooman Samani, artificial intelligence researcher at the National University of Singapore, has made a science around this new technology, which he calls Lovotics.

If the Kissenger isn’t enough, couples could purchase Pillow Talk, a pillow released in November 2011 that mimics the heartbeat of your partner, creating the feeling that your partner is actually sleeping right there with you.

Purchasing either one of these two new technologies would be a low point for me personally. Maybe they will work for some couples, but I can’t imagine that a pig shaped robot could replace my lover’s lips or that a pulsing pillow would feel like I’m sleeping with them. The concept is all too new and strange, and the thought that this could be the future of dating is rather terrifying.

There are new dating methods even for singles out there. Artist Judith Prays has developed a new way of meeting people that verges on the absurd. Since 2010, Prays has been having Pheromone Parties where guests bring their own t-shirts (which they were instructed to sleep in for three days minus perfumes and deodorants), stuff them in plastic bags and exchange them with other guests. Men and women smell each t-shirt, choosing each other based off their scent. As gross and odd as this may sound, Prays’s parties have actually proven quite successful. At her first party, 40 men and women exchanged t-shirts, 12 of the 40 “hooked up,” as Prays told the Huffington Post, and half of those hookups turned into relationships. Prays told The Daily her reasoning behind the parties resulted from a past relationship. “The first time I dated someone for purely physical reasons, it was amazing how well it went. I was so into his smell even when it was objectively nasty. So then I just thought, what if I could choose people by smell?” Prays enthused.

All these new dating techniques and technologies may seem a bit far-fetched when discussing the future of dating, but looking at the many that exist, dating has already drastically changed. Take communication for example. It used to be that receiving a letter from a lover was one’s entire world. There was something so personal and romantic about those letters, but unfortunately, they’ve become a thing of the past. Communication then progressed to the telephone. I remember the days of anticipating phone calls, that is until I got a cell phone and could text. Texting provides a quick means for couples to communicate, but the cell phone also acts like a wall, cutting off the personal, romantic and passionate aspects that love letters and even those anticipated telephone calls had before it.

Even before communication, there is the process of meeting someone. Sites like eHarmony and Match.com allow people to create their own specifically tailored profiles and be set up with their perfect mate. I remember a time when people were embarrassed to use dating sites.
Admitting such a thing could warrant peculiar stares with people thinking, “You can’t just meet someone on your own?” That judgment has seemingly vanished though, as more and more people are finding success on these websites. My cousin even met her husband on Match.com (now I’m starting to sound like one of those commercials).

There are even dating apps out there that let people find singles in their area. Nothing to do on a Friday night? Use an app like AreYouInterested? and meet up with another local single instantly.

The process of dating is an evolving thing and, unfortunately, it seems we have lost a bit of the romance along the way with all of these new technological innovations. And although I may never kiss a Kissenger, sleep with a Pillow Talk, frequent Pheromone Parties or share a lot of my feelings by text message, the rise of dating sites has proved a positive in this technological takeover. I’m still getting used to digital love and all of these new techniques, but I have a feeling they’re here to stay. Sorry, Keats.

Jessica Keesee can be reached at
jessica.keesee@spartans.ut.edu.