Instead of speaking to each other in order to get to know one another better, a couple will sit together, perhaps even holding hands, and have an artificial story, a concocted fantasy dreamt up in Hollywood, entertain them for hours. After sitting passively for two hours, with virtually no interaction, and watching other people speak on the screen in their stead, they will say what a wonderful time they had together, and how comfortable they feel with each other. Notwithstanding the related problem of how healthy it is to be constantly entertained, indeed obsessed with synthetic characters whose lives have no bearing on reality, and whether or not we can be as interested in our partners as we are with the perfect bodies and lives which we watch on screen, the experience itself limits our interaction with one another. Indeed, I have watched in amazement over the last five years as Rabbi to the Jewish students of Oxford University how often conversations between students will turn to films and the lives of the rich and famous. What better proof for the complete and utter domination of our lives by popular culture than the fact that CNN Headline News, which charts the most important world events affecting the lives of millions all over the planet, will devote a full five minutes as a permanent staple of every thirty minutes' broadcast to Hollywood and the world of television and the movies.
People are bored with each other.
Indeed, we are bored with life itself, and therefore search constantly for an escape to a world of fantasy. At home we are deluged with so many television channels that the need for ever speaking to another person is precluded for anything other than pure necessity. So husbands and wives end up speaking about subjects as wonderful as the plumber and the electrician, or the children's tuition, but never about each other. If they do speak about their own personal lives, it is almost always about their problems. It is like bringing permanent competition into their bedrooms so that they can never be truly entertaining to one another.