These days, the whole life of a loved one is neatly packaged in one small item: a mobile phone. And this subject is constantly before our eyes. How to resist the urge to look at other people’s messages?
Have you thought that the time when jealousy forced us to study with a magnifying glass a blond hair on a coat, rummage through jacket pockets and carefully examine the contents of drawers, has long passed? These days, the whole life of a loved one is neatly packaged in one small item: a mobile phone. And this subject is constantly before our eyes. Just think – it’s unbearable! This is a strong constant temptation. And if suddenly your beloved has not provided his phone with a password, it is almost impossible to resist this temptation. How can you not want to know? How to resist the urge to look at other people’s messages?
A mobile phone is an opportunity to find out everything about the one you love. But is it wise to embark on this adventure? Agnès Jaoui’s excellent film At the End of the Tale (2013) has a scene that captures this contemporary dilemma perfectly. There we see the young heroine poring over the contents of her fiancé’s phone with frightening self-confidence, who remarks deadpan, “This is my private life. If you didn’t want to discover what you don’t like, then you shouldn’t have opened the door!” In such a rather cynical way, the blame is shifted to the one who invaded someone else’s personal space. Is it really so and it is the one who is trying to find out everything about the other who is to blame for everything? But it’s hard to resist when there is a chance to find out the truth so easily… Nevertheless, you have to fight with yourself.
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- I trust no one
Love relationships, in order to last, obviously require us to be able to turn a blind eye to something, to keep our desire to know in check. Many couples who have lived together for a long time have mastered this wisdom. Modern life with its smartphones creates new temptations and therefore requires us to be even more vigilant. Agnès Jaoui draws attention to this, retelling the words of his hero on his own behalf: “There is no need to look for something that can hurt us.”
Happiness lies in staying in your own secret garden, hiding there from the intimate side of the life of another, from any risk of being disappointed in him. But at the same time, there is an opposite obligation: to give another access to your private life. Therefore, you need to erase all questionable messages. To love another means also to protect him from everything that can disappoint and upset him. How many breakups today happen because of a mobile phone? Lots of. I so often hear the stories of couples who broke up because of a few words that weren’t worth seeing. So often that it’s time to ask ourselves if there’s a malignant rebirth here, whereby the mobile phone, originally designed to connect us to each other, has become a dangerous instrument of separation?