Bloke’s Column: Garrit Fishbaum

Well, my sweets. It's been a time.

When Whisper Mag launched, yours truly took one look at the sleek, sassy sampling-tray for girls of a certain age, and said "yes!"

"These girls will understand. They know what it's like to look for love in today's world. Or if they don't, then they should - and I can help them."

Readerettes, I'm talking about our time. What a time to be alive. What a time to be dating.

It was not so long ago, see, that the most important information you could get out of a girl was a series of digits: her number. With the number, you had access. You had an ‘in’.

But see, that ‘in’ would only get a guy in to her phone, where she could decide in each instant how much farther ‘in’ to let you. Today, in the world of the social network, the profile information, the Googleplex, you can easily get an ‘in’ to her network. (Without even having to awkwardly ask at the end of a conversation that may or may not have gone as well as the question presumes!) In today's world, instead of a phone-line, you can instantaneously access the projection of an entire social life – open for you to assess and engage accordingly.

Sure, she could have her settings to private. She could diligently keep herself out of reach of webcrawlers. But that's just a matter of the degree of difficulty to which she sets her gameplay; the game itself is still changed.

And the game is fun. For those males such as myself, nerds who like words, who value learning over grunting, who find ideas and sensibilities as compelling as tits and ass (well, almost), this is a brave new world, with lots of Facebook friends in it.

I hope you also see the dangers, ladies. Please know that you live in a trying time for lonely hearts. Please know that in this hyper-paced environment, where our brains live – in a maybe-scary and increasingly real way – outside of our bodies, the capacity for human failing, perhaps for the failings of the male especially, is only magnified. We are wanderers, you see. Hunters. And today we can wander forever without going stepping out of our door; hell, we can wander through our iPhones while en route on our date with you. The hunt continues fiercely through the tubes.

And when we men say cruelties, when we break a promise, when we break hearts – we might not even be speaking them. We may be typing them; not even be there to see the quivering lip, the tears, the shattered pieces of a dream. I tell you, and you must let your lovers know: we traverse that distance at great peril to the soul.

What does this mean, this new path that's hardly as old as my own adulthood? I have no fricking clue. Thank you for letting me think it through at you once a month for a couple of years. Maybe I'll come back around someday, but until then: surf on, and surf true.