Is Your Cell Phone a Contraceptive?

Your cellphone might be the biggest thing that is holding you back from meeting "The One."

Yeah, I'm not kidding. Here is why you should leave the cellphone at home.

In his article, Digital Contraception, Bill Donaghy from the Theology of the Body Institute, explores the role technology has in our interpersonal interactions and relationships.

A picture of a young woman photographing herself shaking hands with Pope Francis provoked his thoughtful reflection. Are we using technology as a barrier to true intimate human relationships? This concern is especially relevant for all of us who have ever had an online dating profile.

Is your digital self your authentic self?

Donaghy's article warns of the opportunity to hold back from relationships by hiding behind a screen, and not just in long distance relationships, but in particular, for those people within arm's reach.

Here are some questions to ask ourselves:

Are we only willing to give the digital version of ourselves?

Are we brave enough and open enough to be able to meet in person and get to know each other without technology?

Do we use our screens as a physical barrier to the emotional barrier we've already set on our hearts?

Start living in the present

A quick browse through social media makes it easy to conclude that many people are obsessed with taking pictures of the present so that in the future they can remember the past. Instead of living in the moment with all their faculties and senses, they're divided, withholding a part of themselves so that they're acting as a spectator instead of a participant in their lives and those lives around them.

Recently I printed photos of our youngest daughter from the first six months of her life. While I'm happy I have them, a part of me hoped that I would have remembered to take more since babies change so much in those early months.

But I know why I didn't; I was living and appreciating each moment, holding and soothing my poor little girl while sweeping her hair from her forehead, patting her back, pressing my lips against her soft skin and inhaling her sweet cream scent as I sang softly in her ear. I didn't want to interrupt that intimacy with my family in order to document it.

Often I hear veteran parents say of babies, "Enjoy them when they're this small! They grow up so fast!"

I want to reply, "But they're still here. They're just as precious and cute to me now as they were as babies, and in some ways, more, because we have many more years to build our relationship together. I don't 'miss' them as babies, because we still live together under the same roof. I'll miss them when they move out or pass on to the next life. I enjoy them whenever I get the chance."

But instead I simply say in response, "Yes, I know, we do."

Meet people face to face

I challenge you to seek more real, living, breathing, interpersonal human interactions. Here are some ideas to try:

visit a nursing home and hand out cards

babysit your married friends' kids so that they can live out their vocation while you live yours: a gift of life to another.

gather courage and allow yourself to become a beacon of God's hope and love for another person by asking them out on a date.

see your friends, but leave your cell phones in the car so that you can give each other your undivided attention.

spend time at an adoration chapel, face-to-face, with Jesus. This, too, counts as building intimacy...with our Lord.

meet that cute guy/gal on CatholicMatch in person-as soon as possible! CatholicMatch exists as a convenient and affordable way to "meet," closing physical distance gaps which would otherwise make introductions impossible. But the internet alone cannot support an authentic intimate human relationship. If you keep your relationship at arm's length through your iPhone, Skype, or IM and email, then you're holding back a part of yourself.

While you have sight and sound through multimedia, you forgo the other senses which facilitate growing relationships. I'm not advocating immoral behavior, but we have physical bodies because relationships are meant to be physical.

We use our bodies to hold hands, hug, kiss, play sports, dance, and pray.

These authentic human interpersonal experiences propel us towards our spouses, and continue to do so long after marriage.