I think I am BU about this, but can't be the only one.
I'm nostalgic for the days when the home PC was a bit hulking metal in the corner of the cold and messy spare room, on a dusty desk with a wonky office chair, which made surfing the net a lonely but necessary affair. You booked your train tickets, did an online grocery shop, sent a few emails and then logged off and carried on with your evening.
How did it all happen so fast, that cosy nights on the sofa cuddled up with DH, a bottle of wine and crap tele have been replaced by me sitting one end, and him at the other on his feckin laptop, tap tap tapping away, and surfing for hours and hours on end?
I'm hardly dragging him away from the party of a lifetime, but do you remember when evenings used to be about sharing time together? TV would be a bit crappy, but there was always something on we could agree, and comment upon. Now, DH watches with one eye on the TV, and one eye glued to the laptop screen.
I have huffed and puffed and aired my opinions about this, but he argues, why is it any different to him reading a book or the newspaper whilst I watch TV? Which is a good point, but it's the utterly all-consuming way in which the internet has replaced the TV as the source of an evening's entertainment and it's such a solitary pleasure (ahem)
Don't get me wrong - I could MN ALL day and ALL night if I could. I have my own laptop, I could easily sit there and MN whilst he's surfing car and football sites (his obsession) But quite apart from the fact that the thought of us both sitting on the sofa on our respective laptops makes me feel like i'm in some orwellian nightmare of dysfunction, i just feel it would be rude and discourteous to MN for hours on end whilst others are in the room and may appreciate my companionship. He obviously doesn't share this view.
So what's it like in your houses, when the kids are in the bed and the curtains are drawn? Has it become the norm for couples to surf the net independently on different laptops, in the same room?
My SIL reliably informs me that her and her entire family of 4 all sit in the living room all night every night together, on 4 different laptops (and yes, the DDs even communicate to each other via FB)
Should I just accidently drop his laptop in the bath?