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Time - Man of the Year
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1993-04-08
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SPECIAL ISSUE: MILLENNIUM -- BEYOND THE YEAR 2000 THE CENTURY AHEAD, Page 53The Dating Game
Love and marriage will be dangerous sports, a humorist predicts
By MERRILL MARKOE
The next century will be a time of many informational
breakthroughs. Most notably, the battle between the sexes will
take on a new complexion because it will be scientifically
documented that men and women are completely different species
of animals (not unlike, say, hyenas and pumas, although there
will be a lot of heated arguments about who gets to be the
pumas).
Once everyone accepts that we're speaking different
languages, a computer system will be developed that allows
instantaneous intersexual communication to occur. For the first
time, certain simple but formerly bewildering transactions will
become clear. At the end of an evening out, when the single man
of the future says to his date, "I had a nice time. I'll call
you" (I predict that men will still be using this line), the
woman to whom he is speaking will immediately hear in her
headset: "What he means is that while he thinks you are
attractive, he's concerned that you already have expectations of
him that he will never be able to meet. He's associating you
with his needy, castrating mother because she had the same hair
color as yours."
By this time, sex and dating will be so dangerous (owing to
the numerous rampant communicable diseases and personality
disorders) that they will be attempted only by the kind of
thrill seekers who now do things like bungee jumping, sky
surfing and eating at Denny's. By the year 2020, in fact,
"casual dating" will be a popular arena sport. People too
terrified to pursue something so hazardous themselves will
witness actual live human beings who, for big money stakes,
will eat dinner with and then perhaps (if dinner goes well)
become intimate with people they are attracted to but basically
know nothing about.
Because the average person will be far too cautious to risk
even a single totally worthless encounter, we will see the
transformation of the medical clinic into a kind of after-hours
meeting place where nervous but lonely people will be able to
undergo a battery of health tests and, while awaiting the
results, stop by the bar to enjoy a trendy snack with others
who may have the same ailment. (I predict that honey-roasted
songbirds will be the snack of choice by then because they will
turn out to be the last remaining edible creature that is
domestically plentiful, low in fat and still has not been made
into a trendy snack item.)
All of this escalating terror will, oddly, increase the
number of marriages taking place, even though we will see the
divorce rate rise from 1 in 2 marriages to 2 in 2. These
alarming statistics will cause the birth of a new nuptial
tradition. Savvy couples will create the most intimate bond two
people can share by agreeing to get married and divorced
simultaneously. At that point, they will possess so much file
data about each other that they will negotiate in advance the
terms of every day they plan to spend together, deciding what
annoying habits they are willing to tolerate and, more
important, what personal details each one will permit the other
to use either in court or in the eventual tell-all book.
"Looking at me cross-eyed" could emerge as the most common
charge of misconduct in the personal nuisance suits that will
clog the legal system.
Playing right into that will be the amount of specific
evidence people will have accumulated about each other as
"compulsive video documentation" becomes the most common new
addiction. By the year 2010, TV networks will decide to give
all video-equipment owners a shot at their own show as long as
they promise to supply footage that is extremely disturbing.
Recorded evidence of violence and malicious mayhem will draw
such astronomical sums that criminals contemplating an illegal
activity will consult with movie developers during the
important planning stages of the crime. They will thus make sure
that the approach they are taking with regard to plot and
details is the one that will have the best eventual effect on
sales figures and marketing potential.
This blurring of the line between life and entertainment
will culminate in a scandal when a giant underground facility is
discovered in the Midwest that is being used as a breeding lab
by desperate talk-show producers who have been completely out
of new guests since the mid-1990s. It will be discovered that
the producers have been assembling affable humanoids from the
fat, tissue, bone and spare parts of celebrities who have
undergone a lot of plastic surgery, training the "guests" to
cultivate zany or inappropriate hobbies and schooling them in
how to tell 10 different 15-minute anecdotes about themselves.
This will constitute their entire life-span, after which they
will be melted down and reworked for an additional booking.
Yes, it's going to be a bold new world, full of brand new
dysfunctions, addictions and disorders: a million new things to
worry about! But that's progress.