Meeting Lydia Read online

  “According to Griffiths (1999), there are three types of cyberaffair. Firstly, meeting on the internet in order to engage in erotic dialogue for sexual arousal …” She paused, watching the class scribbling furiously. “This is called ‘hotchatting’ and in its extreme form, ‘cybersex’.”

  “How does that go on?” asked Sean. “I just don’t understand.”

  Cate chipped in, knowledgeable in matters of electronic communication and not afraid to share her thoughts with others. “Basically, isn’t it like dirty talk but with someone you don’t know, so you can tell them your deepest fantasies without being embarrassed, ’cos you can’t see their reaction.”

  Marianne interjected: “That’s the extreme form of a cyberaffair. Erotic dialogue …”

  “Like interactive porn!” said Sharna, slapping her hands on the table.

  “When I go into chat rooms,” said Cate, I get messages – like, dirty ones – and it’s not even like what’s your name? Sometimes when I was younger, I would encourage it.”

  “When you get older, you realise how dangerous it can be,” said Marianne.

  “Not really,” continued Cate. “My Mum’s started doing it as well!”

  At this some of the students clapped while others laughed or looked shocked at the revelation.

  Ellen said, “I didn’t think people took cybersex seriously. Me and my friend – when we were at school – we used to do it … crowd round the computer and take the piss out of people.”

  Marianne raised a cautioning eyebrow at Ellen’s choice of language, but continued: “Branwyn, (1993) says, and I quote, ‘compu-sex enthusiasts say it’s the ultimate safe sex for the ’90s, with no exchange of bodily fluids, no loud smoke filled clubs and no morning after.’ But is it safe? We’ll come to that in a moment …”

  “I’ve actually seen a programme on television,” said Jason. “Late night—”

  “Channel 5!” interrupted Chantelle.

  “Flicking through the channels …”

  “Oh, yeah, people always say that!”

  “It was cybersex,” continued Jason, “but they was doing it more … I dunno, more physically. You had to put electrical pads in a certain place and then the person the other end can trigger a signal to stimulate that place.”

  Even Marianne was surprised by this revelation. “Are you sure the technology is possible?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah,” chorused three of the boys.

  “I think all this cyberaffair stuff is really quite sad ’cos people can’t get someone for real,” said Sharna. “I just don’t like it.”

  “But this, as I mentioned, is the extreme end of such relationships,” said Marianne. “There are other possibilities that are perhaps slightly less controversial. Griffiths’s second type is those liaisons that are more romantic and emotional than sexual and may or may not lead to offline meeting. Or, thirdly, people may first meet offline, but then conduct their relationship online – perhaps because of geographical distance.”

  Now and then she glanced down over the pages of her notes, checking the spelling of a name or the accuracy of a date. These she wrote on the whiteboard behind her and by the end of the session it would be covered with spidery scrawl denoting researchers and theories relevant to this very new area of psychology. Interactive whiteboard technology was only just beginning to enter the college and hadn’t yet reached her department, something for which she was extremely thankful, not because she was afraid of using it, but because she knew its presence would make her feel she ought to be presenting high-tech lessons and she didn’t see how she would find time to prepare them. PowerPoint was as far as she was inclined to go, and even that had its disadvantages with students frantically scribbling everything they could see instead of listening to her and processing the information.

  Today the students were squinting as the sunlight burned through the windows. She pulled a blind and threw off her cardigan.

  Marianne continued: “The rules for such encounters are not yet properly established. The boundaries are fuzzy. No one knows for certain what’s acceptable and what’s not. What exactly is the difference between an ‘emotional affair’ and an innocent friendship? Bearing in mind that any friendship is sometimes going to venture into discussing personal matters.”

  “An affair is basically, yeah, cheating. Friendship is okay,” said Chantelle, bangles jangling like a wind chime as she flicked her jet black hair.

  “It’s only an affair if you’re married,” said Obi. “Does that mean anyone who’s married shouldn’t communicate with opposite sex friends by email? Are all cyber relationships wrong if you are already in a relationship?” Marianne probed the class further.

  “It depends what you talk about, innit.”

  “How do you keep it within acceptable boundaries?” asked Marianne. “Cyberaffairs would be romantic or sexual, but where does friendship end and romance begin? Fuzzy boundaries again. Will there be unwritten rules for this in the ‘rule-repertoire’ of future generations? There’s already a Netiquette of a sort … Can you remember what we call unwritten rules? From last year’s AS course?”

  “Norms,” said Jason.

  “And why are such relationships addictive?” asked Marianne.

  “’Cos it’s easy, innit.”

  “Email’s dead quick.”

  “You don’t have to get dressed up.”

  “No one can see if you’re in your knickers!” added Cate.

  The class laughed.

  “You can also escape from them if you need to,” said Stanley.

  “Change your email address!” said Ellen. “Can you think which theoretical perspective would explain the addiction? Jason?”

  “Social learning theory.”

  “Why?”

  “Reward … positive reinforcement …” said Jason.

  “Classical conditioning … association with something nice …” said Naomi.

  “But why do it in the first place?” asked Marianne. “Som’ink to do … boredom …” said Sean, stretching his enormous frame.

  “Some people are shy in face to face relationships, aren’t they? This is a way of making contact when they would otherwise be too scared … Why else?”

  “Unhappy.”

  “Who’s unhappy? Speak in complete sentences please.”

  “Married people in bad relationships,” said Cate. “Yes, and it is a form of escapism from real life … and what about people who work long hours? People who don’t have time for a social life? Cooper’s Triple A Engine: access, affordability and anonymity; or Young’s ACE: anonymity, convenience and escape.” Marianne wrote these on the board.

  “And what are the problems with such relationships? Three main things for you to remember: People pretending they’re someone they’re not. This has received headlines when it is a mature adult man pretending to be sixteen in conversation with a schoolgirl.”

  “That’s sad,” said Chantelle.

  “Secondly, the internet relationship may replace a potentially more satisfying real relationship. This might be true for those who are busy and choose this form of meeting because it saves time.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing, rather than a problem?” asked Jason.

  “Real relationships are ultimately more satisfying,” said Marianne.

  Cate waved her hand. “Not to everyone, they’re not … Like you said … there’s some things – like mess – that you don’t have to worry about on the internet!”

  “What mess d’you mean?” asked Ellen, grinning.

  Obi said: “Better to have an internet relationship than no relationship … I don’t think they’re always bad news …”

  “So a few conflicting opinions there,” continued Marianne. “Thirdly, of course, they may put at risk already existing real relationships. Much has been in the papers about Friends Reunited causing marriage break-ups when the spouse runs off with his or her lost love from way back when … But there are hundreds of happy stories as well. Perh
aps when two people have each lost a partner through death or divorce and they are free agents … But it’s the break-ups that hit the headlines. Mid life is when people have often been married for a long time, the kids have grown up, and then the boredom creeps in. The excitement of meeting an old flame causes people to get carried away.

  “But should we blame the internet? The telephone and letters have always been used for clandestine purposes. So what’s the difference between email and these other forms of communication?”

  “No one need know about it.”

  “That’s right. The phone rings and anyone might answer it. A letter drops on the mat and suspicion is aroused. But email comes and goes stealthily. Does this make it wrong?”

  Marianne paused and felt a momentary anxiety. Was she therefore doing something wrong in mailing Edward? Surely not. Anyone could read their letters. It wouldn’t matter if Felicity was looking over his shoulder. They were innocence itself. Mostly it was reminiscence or talk of work or other lightly philosophical matters. And it wasn’t as if they were mailing every week, or complaining about their spouses behind their backs.

  “It’s all right if people know,” said Obi.

  “What people?”

  “Person you’re married to, right. If they know, then it’s okay.”

  “I don’t agree,” said Sharna. “When you said the other time, Miss, about an imagined rival being threatening … Well it could be even worse than a real one because with a real one you can see the extent of the flirting; you can see what’s going on …”

  “Can see she’s a dork!” said Cate and the class laughed.

  “Yeah, if it’s someone in cyberspace, you could imagine they’re the most beautiful person on Earth,” added Ellen.

  The bell rang and the class stirred, their attention momentarily broken.

  “Just to finish,” said Marianne. “All internet relationships are potentially inflammatory and in the future there will probably be an accepted unwritten code of conduct. The boundaries will be clearer, but until then, all such relationships should be handled with extreme care.”

  When the lesson was over, Marianne walked in contemplative mood to her office. When she was at work, she was very feet-on-the-ground; no time for frivolity when you were dealing with the futures of these young people. In this mood she wondered about and questioned her motives.

  Dear Edward,

  Today I’m having serious doubts over whether I should be writing to you. I think that I am honourable and I think you are; I’m sure you are. But my students believe that all emailing between a man and a woman is dubious – even if it isn’t, it could lead to a partner feeling insecure or jealous.

  I know I would never have phoned you, or written to you by snail.

  But to stop now … How can I? That would seem wrong too.

  When she was younger she thought that people over forty lived in a passionless world. Now she knows that’s not true!

  The Id: the Pleasure Principle: Freud’s first element of the human mind.

  Marianne was hovering on the brink of fantasies. Dare she go there? What would she find if she let her imagination run wild? Should she feel guilty? After all, Johnny had fantasies. She knew he had them about all kinds of women, from the celebrities strutting on red carpets in designer dresses, to the bank clerks with their prim white blouses and the artificial nails. It was the kind of thing men did and you asked no questions if you wanted a quiet life. Foolish is the girl who thinks her dearly beloved is dreaming about her every time the S word floats through his mind – approximately once every eight minutes according to some statistics, and once every three minutes according to Robin Hamilton one lunchtime in the staffroom.

  Best not to ask questions or expect anything different. It is the way it is; pre-programming from an ancient time; primary drives stuff. So why shouldn’t she fantasise too? She did – occasionally, but not about people who really existed in her world. Her fantasies were sporadic and confined to sports personalities and others in the media – not too different from her Man from UNCLE daydreams of long ago. Her dreams were more about being indispensable, being heroic, being loved to madness; the kind of thing that was rarely the way it was in real life. Only if she liked her fantasy object for a long, long time would she consider taking off their clothes.

  But she couldn’t go there with Edward. The id would not win this one. Edward had originally entered her life before the time of lustful thoughts. When she was ten he had set her heart dancing with his gentle manner and extraordinary mind, and now that she was forty-six, it was exactly the same. She didn’t need any more excitement than this idle dreaming; this hero-worship.

  And one day; one day when they finally got round to meeting, reality would sink in and the bubbling sea would settle. They would be friends; friends without fear of rejection because they went back so long and had come so far. Friends who would be concerned for the other, and who would be there over the next few years in that hazy world of the internet to share a word or two when the going got tough as it always did. He was her intellectual consultant; her motivator, her reminder of her own capabilities that she had almost forgotten, so bound up as she was in the day to day needs of child and husband and job.

  She was Androcles’ lion. His presence in her cyberspace had subtly pulled the thorn of her past and stopped her hurting, and maybe one day in the far-flung distant reaches of time, he might call in the debt and she would do whatever she could to help. This was unconditional; independent of further action on his behalf. She had such belief in his integrity; such trust in this man whom she hardly knew, yet believed she knew so well.

  ‘Give me a child till he is seven …’

  30

  The Big Questions

  To: Edward Harvey

  From Marianne Hayward

  Date: 2nd May 2002, 18.04

  Subject: The Big Questions

  Hi Edward,

  As an archaeologist, you must wonder frequently about the past and where we’ve come from. Do you spend your quiet hours musing about pre-historical existence, while I spend mine thinking about our current state? Do you contemplate the gender roles of long ago, seeing in every ancient arrangement of houses the answers to the question of who did what and how? Meanwhile I agonise over our inability to ‘get it right’ in relationships, the angst and disharmony and failure. In times gone past humans must’ve been so concerned with matters of survival, they wouldn’t have energy to worry about compatibility matters. Men’s arguments would be with their neighbours, or with the brute in the next settlement rather than with their women. And children would be leading the lives of adults as soon as they hit puberty. Not for them the molly-coddled existence of many young people of today, constantly excused their bad behaviour and immaturity because of their tender years. The role models would be parents – no spitting, swearing, hooligan footballers to emulate then; and no time for binge drinking and purposeless closing-time brawls, because you would be trying to prove your worth as protector of the family or creator of the home. So these ‘new’ inappropriate behaviours are merely substitutions. I am beginning to see the advantages of National Service. Education happened through merely living. Kids were the apprentices of their parents. This is a very Vygotskian view of learning!

  Hope all is well,

  Best wishes,

  Marianne

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 12th May 2002, 20.51

  Subject: Re: The Big Questions

  Hi Marianne,

  Sorry for delay in replying; it’s been a busy week. Still busy, so this is brief …

  Archaeologists do wonder about gender roles but tend to steer away from ‘sociologese’.

  I spend less time thinking about the past than I used to. Is this a sign that I am tired of it all?

  National Service may have its merits, but it’s not something I would have wanted; nor for my kids. Sport is a more civilised way of channelling the energ
ies of the young. Edward

  To: Edward Harvey

  From Marianne Hayward

  Date: 16th May 2002, 22.16

  Subject: Re: The Big Questions

  Hi Edward,

  Why do humans want to know so much? Did they always want to know, or were they quite content to exist and struggle to live in the present and propagate for the future like other animals? What is the point of us knowing what we know if we’re going to lose it all? The chances are we’ll all disappear in some global catastrophe soon – a mass extinction – and then who will read the books and take things onward? Some inconsequential animals will survive, but how many millions of years before intelligent life emerges again? And what will remain of us in fossil records of tomorrow?

  In any case, I think archaeology is a good advertisement for cremation. Who wants to be dug up and brushed and x-rayed and scrutinised in a few thousand years from now? No doubt the techniques will be ever more sophisticated in producing a likeness from a skull. Already forensic artists bring people uncannily back from the grave. I don’t want to be judged yet again; measured against the ideal of the time. RIP should mean just that. No wonder the curse of Tutankhamun …

  This morning on the radio they were talking about ’flu pandemics. Like there’s bound to be one sometime soon and we’re so unprepared. They talked about 1918. We could all be finished off in a ’flu pandemic. “Poor sods,” they’d say. “Cut off in their prime …” well, give or take a few years, “by yet another ’flu pandemic. Saw it coming a mile away, but did they do anything? No, just sat back thinking it would cost too much, heads in the sand, ostriches all … thinking it wouldn’t happen to them …” It is incredible to think of the thousands – probably zillions – of events through history that had to occur in order for us to exist as we are. Is that why people believe in gods? Perhaps it is comforting to think that there’s someone pulling the strings and that we’re not just dependent on chance. The responsibility is too much.

  Best wishes,

  Marianne

  To: Marianne Hayward