Cell phones, homelines, voicemails, emails, text messages, pagers, letters, blogs, IMs, web cams, MySpace, Facebook, online gaming and now this column - the constant barrage of new communication technologies has caused us both to invade and project every physical, mental and emotional aspect of ourselves to the point where there is nothing that remains unthought or unsaid once you are actually with someone in person.

This holds true for friends but even moreso for significant others. After only a year and half of dating mine, I felt like I had lived 20 lifetimes with him. I had already read the minutiae of his day in email, so his voice became white noise when he launched into a synopsis on the phone later that night. Even in person, I would tune him out unless pressing for details on something in particular that interested me - the conversational equivalent of a Google search, with any irrelevant information automatically discarded; the person being discarded unless what he had to say arrived in a sound bite via my preferred method of communication.

This created a major problem - a problem you also might have encountered but never realized or diagnosed: I equated listening with caring. Going through the motions of listening translated into going through the motions of a relationship, which is the point where I ended things, because no one should want to be in a relationship where all you can do about it is shrug apathetically and say "it is what it is" because you're tired of pretending to care.

High relationship expectations paired with such a low threshold for personal interaction eventually belittles people in your eyes and makes you more self-important in your own, which can lead to a suffocating, unidentifiable guilt assuaged only by breaking up ("I'm not ready for anything this serious"), counseling ("I constantly feel like an elephant is sitting on my heart") or prescription drugs ("Make the elephant on my heart weigh less").

Instead of becoming more involved with my significant other physically, I distanced myself. There wasn't an ounce of mystery or privacy left in anything, so I begrudged sharing precious Me Time. I said our relationship "wasn't exciting anymore" and that while he had done everything for me, it still "wasn't enough" so he "must not be the right person." By using our increasingly maxed-out capacity for communication as a ruler for how much we care, only
schizophrenics would stand a chance of successfully measuring up in relationships from which we inevitably get too much, too soon.

Case in point: less than a year in, he would show up to visit, and I would already be over it. The only time I felt a flicker on my emotional radar was when

we would go on field trips (which I love no matter what) or if he was inexplicably unreachable, and even then it was just a mixture of relief and anxiety. But it was SOMETHING.

The irony is I had met him online and at the time praised the medium, using the flushed, commonly heard "I feel like we already know each other." We sent each other the quizzes and mini-bios, at the time adding excitement to an otherwise commonplace day and getting us interested enough to set up a low-key non-date at a ballgame.

After the initial infatuation period, however, having already swapped life stories led to disappointment at the fact that our daily lives weren't as interesting as the carefully composed highlight reels we had exchanged in the pre-meet e-novels. Rehashing the past is only fun if it's shared, so generating an interesting present is necessary for a promising future with anyone, regardless of how you meet them.

So how on earth will the techno-savvy demographic be able to handle loving and living with someone when we've already ODed on them? When some of us have even created virtual selves to play with other virtual selves and throw Mii Parades from the worn-in living room
couch?

Without any statistical, scientific or legal support to back me, I believe the first step to salvaging a current "dead-end" relationship or better preparing for the next one is obscenely simple: pretend like it's the Dark Ages - say, the early 90's - and only use your multipurpose communication devices when you need to make social plans or convey timely information. If you're hopelessly addicted to your Crackberry, try picking a phone plan with set minutes, fewer texts and no internet so there will be a concrete financial penalty instead of an unlimited ability to let minutes constantly roll out of and into all aspects of your life.

After having this epiphany and giving my ex a second chance, I am astounded at the number of interesting things that transpire in the course of our days, all of which are kept in a folder for review, including pamphlets, travel brochures, coupons, internet printouts and key talking points on Post-It notes stuck to even more topics in a Stenopad. Now we actually listen to and care about what the other has to say instead of becoming the "Dining Dead" who eat their meals in sullen silence and dissatisfaction.

So seriously - don't talk to them. Until you're with them.