Could a Web Designer Marry an IE6 User?
To many of my regular readers, it is no secret that I recently got engaged. I am very excited to be getting married. Kayla, my fiancé, is a genuinely nice person who also happens to be smart, fun, and beautiful. In preparation for getting married we are doing pre-marital counseling. In pre-marital counseling hot topics include a number of compatibility issues that occur in many relationships including: finances, religious beliefs, and family beliefs. While I got to thinking, in 2009 how important is technical compatibility? Furthermore, when one partner is a web developer does your partner need to be equally technologically savvy? Could I successfully marry someone who is an Internet Explorer 6 user? Come on Kayla! Don’t you know you don’t have support for PNG images?
Most successful relationships I have observed are made up of two individuals with similar technological capabilities. My grandparents for example, worked together for over a half hour trying to figure out how to rewind a DVD. Fast-forwarding, my parents, both in their fifties have yet to fully embrace the Internet, email, or text messaging. In their defense, they did recently purchase a wii. My mom has made great strides in the last few years as my younger sisters have fully given up talking and have moved to solely communicating through text messaging. Although, there are many exceptions, generally as you age you tend to drift away from the new technologies. How will compatibility shift as younger generations age?
When Kayla and I started dating she was considerably less technologically savvy than she is today. To her credit she did have a MySpace account but she accessed it on a raggedy Windows XP Home laptop using Internet Explorer 6. Barf. She didn’t have Internet at her apartment, nor did she use text messaging. Thankfully, since we have been dating, I have convinced her to upgrade to IE7 and I am working on trying to convert her to Firefox. She has also become a skilled texter even mastering the use of T9. I am happy she has made great strides, my question is what if she didn’t? Could we have a happy long-term relationship if she didn’t evolve? If she didn’t utilize the same technologies I do, would she understand my need to spend so much money on the devices, or my constant need to use them?
These questions may seem a bit silly but what if the differences in technology are more severe? Could it be as detrimental to a relationship as differences in religious beliefs or financial strategy can be? To many, technology is incredibly important, it is how they communicate with the world. I rarely see most of my friends but I communicate with them online on a daily basis. If Kayla didn’t understand that, if she frowned on my constant connection to the online world would we be able to survive? I don’t really have an answer. I just thought it was an interesting topic to think about. In 2009, how important is technological compatibility to the success of a relationship? Perhaps they should discuss that in pre-marital counseling, just a thought.
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Comments
@NerdyKid Haha, ‘even if’? More like ‘especially if’… and ‘*really especially if* she used Linux’. 
This article addresses an excellent question, and I think that as the world grows more and more complex, it will become very difficult for people to connect across the technological barrier.
I for one will always prefer to date geeky girls!
I totally know what your talking about.
I have managed to get my wife to use Firefox and she has been happily doing so for a couple of years now. She doesn’t use any extensions and any of the fast capabilities of Firefox, but she does use it.
My wife has a blog, MySpace, Facebook, can text (but usually doesn’t cause carriers rip you off for text in USA) but I wouldn’t call her totally tech savvy. But it’s a good thing. She keeps in tied to the real world. Sometimes I need a friendly reminder to close my laptop for the night and some times the entire day. I forget that the internet will still be there tomorrow, I don’t have to Google that RIGHT NOW!! Even though I want too.
I can’t really fix our car (but I can change the oil or a tire) and I’m not sure about my construction ability, but I can fix the computer, find free software, build her a website, help her parents with their tech savvy short comings and make myself worth while having around.
So I’m not sure if compatibility is a must, but understanding each others strengths and weakness is. And being ok with those.
Or perhaps out wives/soon to be wife should just start a support group 
This is Trena, Steve’s wife. I thought, in defense of all the significant others of techy guys that I should say that I was texting before I got together with Steve and as Steve mentioned, I do have a blog, facebook and myspace which I use all the time. What he forgot to mention is that he himself does NOT have a blog, myspace or facebook (well, he did just get a myspace but he only got it so that he could play around with building a layout and he only has three friends (myself included) in fact for a while his page was all in Lorem Ipsum, so he doesn’t even use it.
It is true, he got me using firefox, but that was only because I liked that it could have different tabs (which IE now does too…or maybe it always did and he just didn’t tell me cause he wanted me to use firefox???) and because he already had it open all the time. I do say that it is better though.
I have learned a lot from my techy husband, but as he said, he needs me to balance him out and remind him to come back down to the real world, otherwise he would stay out in cyberspace all day (and night) long. Sometimes he needs me to remind him that there are actually walking and talking people behind those little pictures on the web and that sometimes it’s good to actually talk directly to them, not just leave a comment.
It sounds to me like you have a good match there with Kayla, someone who is willing to ‘come into your world’, but someone who can balance you out when you start going on at the dinner table about the intricate workings of internet browsers and how your sure that IE is the epitomy of stupid or that you just couldn’t wait to tell her XYZ that you learned on the web that day (all real topics that come up often in our house). Not that all that is bad, but ahh, wouldn’t it be nice to hear my husband show the same passion about discussing the goings on of my day or taking out the garbage.
All in fun Steve! I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lovely post. My girlfriend is equally as tech savy as I am which makes our relationship much easier (though I am am MAC user and she is a PC sufferer, )
It was our 3 year anniversary recently and we were in seperate countries but thanks to technology where able to make a good day of it.
I had to comment on this
While my husband does not use IE6
He is a man who loves to purchase gadgets and gizmos that are what I suppose you can call “tech savvy” however
he NEVER learns to use these gadgets.
I end up showing him how
we’ve been married almost 3 years, been together for almost 5
in that time he’s only RECENTLY started text messaging and still has issues doing it, and he doesn’t “know” how to check them (though i think it’s just an excuse to not have to reply”
our marriage is absolutely wonderful despite our technological differences
in a way it’s a good thing for us.
what he is naturally good at, I am not
and what I am naturally good at, he isn’t always.
it gives us an opportunity to learn from one another
good luck with your marriage and congrats on your engagement!
Your gf is super hot I would date her even if she used a mac.