I am reading a fascinating book lately, one that is making me think much more deeply about how fragmented our world has become because of technology.

Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age by Maggie Jackson is a real eye-opener!  It helps me focus for a few minutes on exactly HOW distracted most of us are most of the time.  It also helps to explain why fewer of us are willing to risk genuine, face-to-face relationships these days.

When it comes to finding new relationships, online is a very real alternative.  That is how I met my new husband seven years ago.

That is why it amazes me when I hear others speak about meeting someone online, developing a virtual relationship, and then deciding not to ever meet in person.  The fear is that by meeting face-to-face, the “relationship” will somehow be ruined.

I feel you have no “relationship” until you have met someone face-to-face.  That is why I always advise meeting in the same room soon after connecting online.  Chemistry is so key to relationships, and cannot be detected through technology, either phones or the Internet.  Chemistry is what happens when your eyes meet face-to-face in the same room!

Technology has gotten in the way of real human connection in so many ways, and partially because it feels somehow safer not to meet fully with others.  Perhaps that is why one quarter of Americans today report no close confidantes in their lives, a figure which has doubled since 1985.  We are so rarely completely present for one another, and yet those are the BEST moments of our lives!

Face-to-face meetings demand mutual reading of body language, emotion, and soul.  They require that we become fully present and alive to this moment.  When was the last time you rewarded someone else with your complete attention?

I know I will NEVER forget the first time I met my husband after only a few e-mails and a phone call.  To meet in the flesh was so much more intense than any “virtual” connection could have ever been.  To experience the look in his eyes, his eye color, the feeling in the room, and the excitement in our voices…that is being alive!

Take the risk to meet fully with another person TODAY, instead of maintaining only virtual relationships.

Take the risk to engage in reality!