Ashley Madison

Jordan Setser, Opinion Editor

When the thought of going on a date enters my mind, I usually think of seeing someone in person before I venture out and spend my free Friday night with the guy. Caused by avid social media users, it’s now the choice of many to date or have any other kind of relationship by reliance on profiles provided by the latest websites, instead of reliance on the real thing that could be sitting across from them at a table for two.

Over 2,500 dating sites are now available with millions of dateable guys. Nowadays the subscribers don’t even have to be dateable. In fact, they don’t even have to be single.

The name Ashley Madison that blares out of the front of many magazines is just one example of affair supporters. Ashley Madison is known among many for the initiator for affairs. Recently hacked, this website’s subscribers came out of the covers and open to the public. Relationships failed, as if they weren’t already doomed to failure. The lack of morality is one thing, but where is the romance in sneaking away with someone you met online, only to hurt the one who still cares about you?

Whatever happened to the Romeo and Juliet type of love? The type of love that receives letters of promise and hope for the future, with the absence of guilt, aside from parental disapproval. Our society has morphed into a monster who wants no connections with the outside world and extinguishes every bit of sense of wonder that stands in its path. It wants things done fast, easy, and uncomplicated.

Most of us don’t even know we are being affected by this. We have become unapproachable and unfamiliar. You look around, fix your eyes on that one person that you know-or at least you think you know because somehow among all the late night stalking you ended up on her brother’s girlfriend’s cousin’s instagram account- and try to imagine what their voice sounds like. Way back when, all we had was a voice.

Besides the jaw dropping bluntness of the Ashley Madison slogan,”Life is Short, Have an affair,” the saying does contain some truth. Life is short. Life is short, so spend time meeting people in person, hearing their voice for the first time, and getting that rush of late night talks below the sky, instead of below the roof of your own home, behind the screen of your light up rectangular handcuffs.