{RECEN T HIS TOR Y }
I tell people that I’ve been excavating my spouse’s Internet behavior. Their rea- sons range from the expected, like not wanting a signifi cant other to know they still exchange e-mails with an ex, to the benign. One friend confessed that she would be embarrassed if her husband knew how much time she spent cooing over photo galleries of interspecies love — a hippopotamus that befriended a turtle, a dog that adopted a squirrel. Another friend likened Internet us-
age to money management. He and his boyfriend keep separate checking accounts to spare themselves debate over spending habits; my friend viewed Internet histories the same way. It’s not that either of them is doing anything wrong online, just that what they are each doing is none of the other person’s concern. Ultimately, my friend said, “we would just be insanely bored by each other’s bookmarks.” Boredom is a potential casualty of
digging into your partner’s online life. Uncovering an online affair or a porn addiction would be immediately devas- tating, but so, too, would be the unset- tling emptiness of learning that your partner privately supported causes you didn’t believe in, wasted time on things you thought were stupid, or was just re- ally, really … dull. It occurred to me that it wasn’t fair
for Rob to vivisect his laptop for me and not get the same courtesy in return. With this in mind, I forwarded Rob the following list of Web sites: www.Mug-
gleNet.com,
www.TwilightLexicon.com,
www.Twitarded.blogspot.com. I am, pathetically, one of those over-
grown “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” fangirls — the type who purchases the “Entertainment Weekly” special edi- tions with the actors on the cover. Rob knows this, to a certain extent. He even stood in line alone, amongst hundreds of 12-year-olds, to buy me the seventh Harry Potter book when it was released on a night I had to work late. (That, husbands, is love.) But does he know that I obsessively
read interviews with Dakota Fanning and dream about attending a fan con- vention analyzing the wizarding sport
24 THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE | JUNE 13, 2010
of Quidditch? He does not. These sites are my soul at its most privately idiotic. If Rob’s Internet history was remind-
ing me of how thoughtful he was, would mine remind him that I once faked sick for a dinner party so I could watch the television premier of “Goblet of Fire?” But I sent him the links anyway,
before continuing my dig through his computer. The last major discovery of what Rob
Uncovering an online affair or
a porn addiction would be immediately devastating,
but so, too, would be the unsettling emptiness of learning that your partner privately
supported causes you didn’t believe in ... or was just really, really ... dull.
does online surprised me the most. I rarely Google myself. When you’re
a journalist, it becomes either ego- stroking or immolation, depending on how the blogosphere feels about your latest article. It’s saner to just ignore it entirely. So I was confused when the computer’s history revealed visits to several sites mentioning my name. The things that I couldn’t stand to
monitor, Rob was monitoring for me. Another history revealed that Rob
had been researching another journal- ist whom neither of us had ever met. This reporter had contacted my parents because he wanted to write a story about their nonprofi t organization, and Rob had been reading the man’s previ- ous interviews to make sure that he would treat my family fairly. While I had spent one week trying
to understand my husband through his Internet searches — intimacy through stunt, really — those searches quietly illustrated his affection for me. Welling over with appreciation, I
told Rob how touched I was by his Googling, and then asked whether he’d had any time to devote to watching the newly released teaser trailer for the “Twilight” movie or check out the up- dates on the Harry Potter theme park opening in Florida. Rob said earnestly, and with only the
gentlest of pauses: “I like knowing what you’re reading. I feel like it helps me un- derstand you better. I have my limits.” Then we shut down our laptops
to tune into Dork McGorkle’s latest report.
Monica Hesse is a staff writer for The Post’s Style section. She can be reached at
hessem@washpost.com.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158