What is all this business
with text messages? What’s wrong with speaking to people on the phone? Don’t
give me that it’s the cost factor because it seems to me that there is plenty
of money around for the social obsessions with coffee and wine and cocktails.
What is the reason? Do we
not want to actually converse with each other any more? Does it prevent
arguments it you have to tap it out on your phone? It beats me. I like to call
people and I really love it when a friend or family member calls me but that is
happening less and less.
A couple of days ago a
friend just popped in to us at home. It was so unusual that I thought Steve was
talking on the phone and didn’t move from the work I was doing on the computer
until I clearly heard the other guy’s voice. He had not phoned to say he was
coming and had definitely not texted.
This week I have been trying
to make arrangements for us to meet Steve’s cousin Sally so that we can hand
over her birthday present, her birthday being over a week ago, but it seems so difficult
to find a time that suits everybody. There have been umpteen PMs on Facebook and
we still have not fixed anything up.
These days there are more
holidays, that is for certain and one family is away for a while and then when
they come back the other group have to go on a work trip. That would be us, we
are either away working or there is an event that we have competed in.
It there really so little
time? Where has that time gone? Or is it that there is a wave of anti social
activity? My daughter lives two miles
away and I have to send a dozen messages before I can negotiate a mutually
acceptable time to call round to see her. Yes, she is very busy. She has a
sports massage business and is also trying to build a photography business. I
am busy too. I still do all the computer work for our business and have other
little chores thrown at me. And sometimes I don’t have a car because Steve has
taken it to work as he has today because our little van is at the mechanics
garage having work done on it. I could go round on my bike and that it
something I do do sometimes, but they are very often out when I get there.
We are all too busy, and
that goes for Steve and me too. Trying to run a business as we are both getting
older, trying to fit some training in, trying to still have some fun, go to the
cinema or going to the theatre and still eating sensibly in a world where fast
food is an option taken by many.
I wonder if I am the only
one left in the world who likes it when people pop in un-announced. It is
probably a couple of years since my daughter just turned up at our home,
without it being a birthday. Whenever it was, I don’t remember. This year I
have tried to make sure that we meet at least once a month for dinner or just for a
glass of something. It has been hard to find times that suit us all.
When did the world get so un-friendly?
Only our sports friends are seen regularly because we all meet at the pool or
in the café after the run. Perhaps it is the lack of exercise that makes people
avoid each another, not enough energy to talk.
When I was a new mum of
twenty three years old, living in a village eight or nine miles away from my
parents and friends from my single days, and I had not even dreamt of having
any driving lessons and could certainly not afford a car. So I would push my
baby girl in her pram; and that was a big old fashioned pram and not a
conveniently folding pushchair, I walked the mile to Angmering Station and got
the train into Worthing, where I walked about a
mile or two at least to my mum and dads house. They were always pleased to see
me and my gorgeous baby girl, especially the little one, and they expected me to make that journey a couple
of times per week.
It all seems such a big deal
these days to arrange a little get together just for a short chat and a catch
up on how the world is for each of us. I may start a personal war against the
text. Starting with me, should I stop texting just because every else finds
that the only way to communicate? Maybe! The next time somebody says “Text me,”
I will say, “I’ll call you”, because I am sure that they will not call me.
I get mountains of emails. I
send mountains of emails. It’s not the same and I am missing proper friendship,
missing the love.
Rant over.
Signed
Mrs Moaning Minnie
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