Technology: Friend or Foe?

I am very frustrated with technology lately.

I correspond with people all day, mostly by computer. Sometimes it takes minutes for a response. Other times, hours and even days. Sometimes it takes forever because a response never comes. This frustrates the hell out of me. If I took the time to engage you, fucking reply. Even if it’s “can’t talk now.”

But more than the lack of replies that make me crazy, I have become increasingly more desperate to have real conversations; live and in person, sitting next to or across from a human. A conversation, one-on-one with hands flying for emphasis, eyebrows moving in understanding involved in the simple exchange of thoughts, ideas, opinions and comments. I want to read facial expressions, hear someone laugh or smile, note their body language, smell their perfume, cologne or soap, tap their arm for effect, and gain further understanding from the look in their eyes. I want the courtesy of being responsive in real time and the challenge of having to think on my feet. No email. No texting. No chat. I want to speak with my mouth and not my fingertips. WTF!

I crave, to the degree of an addict in the throes of withdrawal, in-person, face-to-face human interaction that engages all of my senses. And yet I know that without the impersonal technology that I abhor at the moment, I have no way of even meeting that need. And despite the fact that I revel in my alone time, am my own best audience and ultimately keep my own counsel, right now I feel a complete lack of interrelatedness and technology sucks.

Oh, look at the time! Dinner. At a restaurant. With people. Halle-fucking-lujah.