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To mark Valentine's Day this year, I searched for love in the most unlikely of places: the internet. So much has been said and written about how modern technology has brought ruin to traditional human relationships - from the incessant beeps of gadgets during family meals to fast-forwarding of life in general - that it was interesting just to see how Valentine's Day was celebrated online.
And what I found was a heady cocktail of sites and communities dedicated to both laughter and forgetting, strangers and friends, technology and love. In some ways, a tiny microcosm of life today - where although the channels of connections constantly change, the universal driving forces of love, hopes, dreams and belonging do not.
A taste of love online
Social networking sites myspace and friendster give an inkling of how the internet can help create connections, cement friendships and sometimes even revive a lost relationship. Though somewhat of a digital dinosaur myself (I turn 30 this year), a friendster profile I set up on a whim two years ago has actually helped me re-connect with two old schoolmates I had almost certainly lost to post-graduation oblivion.
Another site called meetup.com is helping to revive local community kinship by helping to connect users with other people with similar interests who live nearby. The gatherings physically bring together (meetings are refreshingly offline) groups of strangers with common loves - from Chihuahua-lovers to Dungeons&Dragons enthusiasts.
On video-sharing sites such as YouTube.com and Yahoo!Video, you will find a bumper harvest of love-themed videos and short films submitted by thousands of Valentine-inspired video bloggers. There's even a sponsored section on YouTube that allows users to send their friends a film in the form a "Video Card" for Valentine's.
Even stuffy old Yahoo! Finance has been bitten by the love bug. Columnist David Bach muses about how to "spend less and mean more" this Valentine's Day by rediscovering the timeless magic of simplicity. His advice to readers? Send more handwritten notes, prepare a homecooked meal and remember to daydream (together with your partner, of course).
Probably the most persuasive evidence that raw, gut-wrenching humanity is alive and well in cyberworld is a little jewel of a site called PostSecret. Featured by the likes of TIME magazine and CNN, the simple no-frills blog PostSecret.blogspot.com has over 63 million visitors, making it the third most visited blog in the world. What it lacks in fancy animation and techno-features, it more than compensates in content. Here, you'll find a sort of giant online confessional - thousands of secrets dragged up from the deepest darkest places and scribed onto homemade postcards.
From the heartbreaking: "I've become embarrassed by how many times I've been in love" and "I ripped out the heart of the only person who truly loved me"; to the comical "this year for Valentine's Day I am giving my sweetheart a box of chocolates I bought on clearance - last year"; to the occasionally profound: "There is no time I feel more alive than when my heart is breaking."
When asked about the origins of his site (now the most popular advertising-free site on the planet), PostSecret founder Frank Warren merely said, "Every single person has at least one secret that would break your heart. If we could just remember this, I think there would be a lot more compassion and tolerance in the world".
Technology vs Love?
While it has been quite fashionable to gripe over the so-called havoc that new technologies - more specifically, global communications technology - is wreaking in both life and livelihoods, the reverse couldn't be more true.
Yes, the internet, mobile phones and their many gadget cousins have certainly changed when we communicate, how and with whom. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Unshackled by the restraints of time, space, geographies and socio-economic strata, we are now more free to communicate more openly to like-minded people everywhere. One could even argue that before the anonymity and ubiquity of the internet, we would never have had the propensity for so much emotional honesty as we do today.
I started this article thinking that what technology has changed most dramatically isn't the quality of communications but rather its nature and content. But after my brief Valentine's Day Wired World Love Hunt, I am even reconsidering that.
One particular postcard on PostSecret puts it more elegantly than I ever could: "If it weren't for this website, I'd still assume that I have nothing in common with anyone." As human beings, we are creatures of emotions. We hunger for love, admiration, shelter, belonging - the same things we've hungered for since time began.
If wired love seems every bit as confusing, tender, troubling and heartbreaking as real world love, maybe it's because it is. After all, the wired world may be virtual, but its relationships - and all their attendant aches, pains and feelings - are real.
Sulin Lau is Director of Strategic Planning at Naga DDB, a brand and communications consultancy. Her favourite Valentine's Day indulgences are white daisies, awesomely sappy greeting cards and spending time with people who matter.
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