Technology and Sarcasm as a Paradox!

It was brought to my attention at a classy New Year's Party last night that our generation exists between two very disparate identities: we are the age of technology, and the age of irony and sarcasm. In our discussion, we noticed that sarcasm and irony more often than not fall completely flat when conveyed through technology (by which I mean text messaging or phones or what have you)--for instance, if you look at comments on the average YouTube video, there is literally no bottom to how idiotic a post might be yet people will still take it seriously. My friend Maddy references white supremacist posts or gibberish rants as key examples: while most sane people might recognize a lot of these scribbles as tongue-in-cheek, most people on YouTube seem...not to. A disconnect, yes?

Thinking in this vein while crafting my New Year's Resolutions, I made a list of things that feel true about technology and relationships:

WHEN A BOY...
…posts a song on your Facebook wall, what he’s really saying is written in the lyrics of the song, which is—let’s face it—probably a profession of love.
…drunk texts you telling you ‘you’re pretty’ or ‘_________, gorgeous’ he means he really likes you. In the daytime. He might love you, even.
…does not talk to you while you are both online, he already has a girlfriend or is gay.
…talks about other girls’ hotness—even if they are admittedly very foxy celebrities—he only thinks of you as a ‘friend’. Nothing more.
…invites you to a movie marathon or indicates or initiates any interest in ‘hanging out' over Facebook, this is the poor man’s version of ‘asking out’, and should be followed up if the person in question is at all interesting.
…has told you he likes you, suddenly everything he does online (statuses, notes) you can trace back to yourself in true violent vanity fashion.
…talks to you all day about nothing, really, and responds attentively to your messages (online or texting, of course), it’s assumed he likes you. You should act.
…texts you anything along the lines of ‘hey! Whatcha doin? Where you at? Or come over!’ any time after 12am, it is a booty call. You should act.

But even as I look over my list, most of the culprits I know have been guilty of completely opposing double-meanings. It's like that extranneous Drew Barrymore character in "He's Just Not That Into You" monologues: we have crafted a culture where rejection is not only indecipherable most of the time but also able to be repeated, like double jeopardy; our desire for clarity amidst sarcasm and mixed signals becomes rapidly masochistic while the romantically hopeful actively pursue the disinterested through multiple technologies. So...what now? If I sever all contact other than face-to-face I'll never have a conversation with my BFFS again, let alone get a boyfriend. I may move to the jungle.