Is technology and Google driving us crazy?

'An OPK'

As I was concentrating on the story I was working on, which needed to be submitted early for publication, the lady of my house texted me, “Let us invite the visitors tomorrow.”

I obeyed, I agreed, and so be it. I paused my story and made the necessary phone calls to the invited guests and she was happy about it as I struggled to finish up my story.

Later in the evening, she called me to know where I was and I mockingly told her that 'I am just leaving office so in thirty minutes I will be joining you home.'

One minute later, she spots me behind her in her kitchen. She knows my gait even from a distance. “Why do you always fabricate your whereabouts? You said you are just leaving office?” she asked sweetly.

I love surprising her but she may be thinking ill about it.

“By the way, why lie? Do you think you will have the chance of finding me doing something wrong?” I immediately changed the topic because it was not my intention.

Suddenly, she asked me to take her to the pharmacy to buy an ‘OPK’.

She too, has never seen or used one, but technology and Google have caused problems that she has read about, and now she needs them.

So, we drive to the pharmacy and reluctantly, I offered to go in. A few minutes later, I come back empty-handed from the pharmacy, because she says there must be fifteen in a pack, but the only ones available are five in the same pack.

I sat in the car, and as I was telling her that was all I got, she again sent me to ask the pharmacist for a better and cheaper option with more than five tests.

To please her, I went again and came back empty-handed. The pharmacist said he had never seen one that had more than five pieces.

“Please do not feel bad, just go bring it for me. I will Google again later,” she said. She too was embarrassed, but I took it lightly.

It was the third time I was entering the pharmacy with the same pharmacist. I do not know what he might be thinking of me, but being a man, obviously he understood it was neither for me nor by me.

OPKs are for ladies, and if he is a husband too, he would surely know who is behind my going in and out of the pharmacy.

I drive happily back home, she got her OPK, and I am not mad at her, but what would have happened if it was the other way around?

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'Losing weight'

Given that I love providing the lady of my house with what she requests, I never say no because she has this shy-like noble, innocent smile which makes me give in.

Anyways, so it was a sunny morning last weekend, and she requested that I go for a long drive. She likes long drives, and this time she suggested we drive to Sohar, which is more than 200 kilometers from Muscat. So we drove off, talking, sharing ideas, and reminiscing about the past.

Ever since she took a step to lose weight, I have missed the 'we time' we always had when sharing meals, and I thought the long drive would compensate in some way.

The 'losing weight' thing started that day when she popped out the question to me, asking me how I felt about her weight.

I was very honest and truthful to tell her that I loved her the way she was only that she should watch out not to raise the scales more.

This triggered her serotonin level a bit due to the second part of my response. You see, when I say I love the way she is, she takes it as a joke, and when I say she needs to slow down in order to be careful with health issues, she thinks I am not happy about her appearance.

The 'weight issues' are of recent concern to many people, as my neighbour was telling me what happened with him when he constantly proposed to go for daily thirty minute walks with his wife.

She was not the 'walk-aholic' type, yet he was proposing this for her own benefit. What happened few months later, was that she traveled abroad with her sister, and just a month after her return, she was losing weight intensely after surgery.

She underwent surgery not because she wanted to but because she thought the reason why her husband needed the walks together was her scale problems.

The point I am trying to make here is that self made love is so important. We cannot love other people until we learn how to love and accept ourselves the way we are. Let's remind ourselves that our values do not rely on our bodily looks. Till next time.....