A simple matter of getting friends together requires networking skills of mammoth proportions. 5 friends, 60 text messages, 24 emails to 9 email accounts, 18 Facebook messages, 10 Facebook pokes (the reason for which I am yet to fathom, will someone please tell me what it means and put me out of my misery), 15 emails sent via Blackberry, 8 messages sent via Facebook Mobile - yes just because they can, 7 messages left on mobile voicemail (that I discovered the day after the party), a gazillion twitters on Twitter, and there were probably a few posts left on other cyber communication spaces that I have yet to discover. And yet no one thought to make a phone call.
All this for one not very good party that started 2 hours late, ended an hour later and was inundated with confused and angry statements like:
'but I left you a message saying I couldn't pick you up'
'I texted you the directions. You didn't get it??'
'the invite was on My Space, you didn't check it out'
and my personal favourite:
'ofcourse I informed everyone this was a vegan party. I even put it up as a Facebook event'.
But if only the host had thought to pick up with phone and call us to let us know all of this, there would not have been such utter disappointment at finding Soya Chili Balls, Soya Nugget Curry Soya sticks and Soya Bean sauce at the table. Being vegan also meant that there was no alcohol, no salty snacks and no ice cream and so she really had nothing to improve spirits with and take it from me, soya really does nothing for intoxication. The host had forgotten to tag Forgiveness an invite. I heard one girl mumble to another - babe, when you took that wrong turn for the 4th time, you should have just continued down that road.
It had taken 5 avenues of technology to NOT get the message across.
When did picking up the phone and making a phone call get so un-cool? I can remember when it was THE cool thing to do. Getting an hour with the phone back in the days was the equivalent of getting your own Apple laptop today in a funky metallic red.
Then:
"What were you doing last night?"
"I was on the phone for an hour and I didn't even have to sneak into the closet with it."
Now:
"What were doing last night?"
"I was updating my profile page, after which I took 85 quizzes, wrote 106 comments, sent out 24 gifts, made 254 people my friends, then I twittered, looked through pictures of people I don't know, checked out pages of people I don't know and then cried my self to sleep when my hard drive crashed."
I twittered? It's become a verb now?
Do none of you find anything strange about this?
I went to listen to an Indian rock band the other night. Very good stuff, especially the cover versions. Mr. Too Cool For My Mike lead singer had the Axl Rose act perfected, right down to holding his crotch and staggering around the stage in an attempt to look like he was completely under the influence of the music and er, maybe a few other things (and maybe he was, who knows) . But the coolness factor took a beating when he all of a sudden looked genuinely excited and started pointing out to random people in the audience saying - hey, I know you from Facebook and you, I know you too from Facebook.
I mean, I ask you, would Axl Rose have ever done that?
Recently, a patient felt that it was okay to cancel his dental appointments on Facebook about an hour before he was due at the practice, despite me repeatedly telling him that it was impossible for me to practise dentistry and check Facebook updates at the same time. Sure it's okay, I told him later, but only if you're getting virtual dentistry done by Dr. Preeti Cyberspace-Sharma and as far as I know, she doesn't practise here. I was later very tempted to send him an itemised bill to his Facebook page and tag him on some close-up pictures of his teeth. How many of his girlfriends would still find him attractive when they discovered that he had four teeth with rotting food stuck and chronic gum disease.
Earlier when a wimp broke up with you, he would scrawl you a letter which you would then smell and touch and cry over till the ink smudged and then save it in a little envelope that you kept at the back of your underwear draw and you would take out and re-read it whenever they played Roxette's It Must Have Been Love on the radio. There was a certain ceremony to tragedy then. Now the wimp changes his status profile to single and that's that.
