Liquid love

 

The virtual proximity coin is virtual distance: suspension, perhaps even cancellation, of anything that made topographical closeness into proximity. Proximity no longer requires physical closeness; but physical closeness no longer determines proximity.

It is an open question which side of the coin did the most to make the electronic network and its implements of entry and exit such a popular and eagerly used currency of human interaction. Was it the new facility of connecting? Or was it the new facility of cutting the connection? There is no shortage of occasions when the second feels more urgent, and matters more, than the first.

The advent of virtual proximity renders human connections simultaneously more frequent and more shallow, more intense and more brief. Connections tend to be too shallow and brief to condense into bonds. Focused on the business in hand, they are protected against spilling over and engaging the partners beyond the time and the topic of the message dialled and read – unlike what human relationships, notoriously diffuse and voracious, are known to perpetrate. Contacts require less time and effort to be entered and less time and effort to be broken. Distance is no obstacle to getting in touch – hut getting in touch is no obstacle to staying apart. Spasms of virtual proximity end, ideally, without leftovers and lasting sediments. Virtual proximity can be, both substantively and metaphorically, finished with nothing more than the press of a button.