love in the modern age

it was friday night and i was in a "nice" restaurant with a good friend having dinner. halfway through, he received an sms. his boyfriend wants to break up. he replied, with an sms, and asked why. the boyfriend came back with another sms and said he felt very stressed out by the relationship. my friend responded with more questions.

this went on for about 10 minutes. he would send one message off, explain the situation to me, read the reply and then write another.

while all this was happening, i glanced around the restaurant, partly to distract myself, partly to make it less awkward for my friend and partly to hide my embarassment for him. but while i was looking around the room, i saw this very nicely dressed straight couple sitting on the other end of the room. they looked young and i guess they must have been on a date, dressed to impress as they were. they appeared to be waiting for their orders to arrived. but what was really surreal for me was that they were both hunched over their respective mobile phones, both typing away what i guess were smses!

love in the modern age! do we even talk anymore?