Jim Sharkey wrote:
>
> This may tag me as some kind of Luddite, but I find it appalling that
> people can't wait to excise as much human contact from their lives as
> possible. I know people that would rather eat nails than actually
> have to go to the bank for three whole minutes. No one's time is
> really that important, is it?
Social phobia of some sort?
Given my druthers for how to interact with someone I don't know well:
1) through the internet
2) face-to-face
3) phone
If there's a reasonable way to have a face-to-face interaction, rather
than deal with a total stranger over the phone, I'll take the extra hour
to do the face-to-face interaction.
My mom is worse than *I* am in this respect, even. If there's no way to
do something except by phone and I'm around, sometimes she'll have me do
it in her name. (Although I think the last time she had me do that for
her was when she was still living in New Hampshire in 1998....)
I used to prefer going into the bank to using the drive-through, but
once you've taken an 18-month-old into the bank and had to wait in line,
the drive-through seems a lot nicer.
I'm also reluctant to go to a new location for doing thing X. I prefer
to be in a more familiar environment with more familiar people. The
most annoying thing is figuring out the exact configuration of a new
grocery store. Unfamiliar bookstores I can handle a little better than
unfamiliar stores of any other type that I frequent.
I guess I'm saying a) there's a limit as to how much change I can handle
at once, and b) I prefer the various cues and the human contact that
come with a face-to-face meeting as long as I actually have to *talk* to
someone.
Julia
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