Modern Vespa

Wait. . . are you saying I can have her? Really?

Gratzie. . and amazingly true.

My wife and I have been together for almost 40 years, so we don't talk much anyway.

I'm an average looking married guy in my forties who rarely goes out to bars, but I went out last weekend and met several people in their twenties and had some great conversations. I'd say the rumors of the death of conversation are pretty exaggerated. The twenty-something's will turn out all right.

Brendan

Having met you both neither of you strike me as the type that know a stranger.

I know what you mean. I am constantly getting chatted up by young twenty and 30 somethings at work, bars, restaurants etc. It is my cross to bear I guess.

Having raw sex appeal must be such a burden

Horrible. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I certainly didn't start the thread with the intent to bash twenty-somethings. I just wonder how they deal with breaking through the digital wall. Me personally, I don't disturb someone who is on their phone (talking, texting, FB'ing, listening to music, whatever). The activity looks like a "Do Not Disturb" sign to me. And that's ok. Sometimes I don't want to be disturbed. I just find it interesting how this technology has had a profound impact on human interaction & behavior.

-Craig

I purposely slather my finger nails with dirty grease and wear stinky shirts in public. It's a nightmare otherwise.

Hey... do you suppose that's why everyone grabs their smart phone and puts up their digital wall when I'm around?

I've been happily married to the same awesome woman for the past 35 years. If you count living in sin and dating, the count goes up to 39. I observed to her the other day that the thought of dating repulses me. Don't get me wrong, the thought of the "younger woman" is both exhilarating and titillating, but the fact that "she" may be our daughter's age or not that far off, is a major "boner-kill"

Probably should have been talking and not texting.

There have been dating companies around since the 70's. I think i have the only mother on here that had a dating company. My dad died in '74 and we lived in the country. In '76 she boarded up our house and moved to Albany NY where she rented a apt. I came back for a visit and i walked in the door and there was a pot plant sitting in the window and she had me looking at her "dating book". She was 42 at the time and i was 22. I'm like "shouldn't this be the other way around"? I was an assistant head nurse on a 47 bed cardio-thoracic floor at the time and my mom's growing pot and owns a dating service. She's like 'how do you know it's a pot plant" and i'm like" i saw a pic of it in an article i read". Sadly the dating service didn't do to well. Ahead of it's time. Just like her friend that had a solar company back then. His business don't do well because he was also ahead of it's time.

I was single for a couple of years after a happy 40-year marriage that ended when my wife passed after a long illness. I was pretty lonely and clueless. After a year of mourning, I tried a little cyber-dating, mostly to humorous effect... the few dates I had all looked like Elena Kagan (and one of them was actually a law professor). Now, please understand that I greatly admire Elena Kagan, but she's not what I was looking for in a companion.

Thankfully, salvation fell into my lap. A former next-door neighbor returned to the 'hood one day to pick up some mail delivered to her old house. I saw her out on the street and struck up a conversation, wound up asking her out for drinks, and we started dating (how old-fashioned!). A year later we married.

I'm truly blessed. Deborah is a gregarious, easy-going, smart, slim, gorgeous redhead fifteen years my junior... and she's a rider as well!

No way I could have come close doing the bar scene, technological complications or not.

Speaking of which... we occasionally have dinner on special occasions at a high-end steakhouse here in Annapolis that has some of their small tables in romantic little dark-wood-paneled stalls (with a curtain to use if you like) for privacy. Incongruously, they have a flat-screen TV installed in each of the stalls. What's that all about?

I am shockingly good at faking not being shy.

Then once I get to stop, I run away and retreat to the nearest couch and ensconce myself in a pillow fort.

You had me at "let me take your picture". It is hanging on the "wall of family" in our downstairs bath.

Not when I'm out eating during the LSU/Ole Miss baseball game on ESPNU like last night when my wife and I had our daughter out for supper. We weren't ignoring our daughter. She has season tickets but this weekend the games are in Oxford, MS.

Actually your both wrong.

Porn?

Seriously, though, folks, I think we are in the middle of a social revolution. People used to be almost completely isolated from anyone outside their tribe/village. Then came cities, postal services, telegraph, telephone - all enabling regular connections to be made at longer distances. I am old enough to remember "pen pals".

All this was still slow, expensive (other than letters), and not widely available. Now, instantaneous communication is ubiquitous and cheap enough for almost everyone, at least in developed countries, to afford. We can carry on minute-to-minute relationships where physical distance no longer matters. I am closer to many people across the country, and the world, than I am to my next-door neighbors.

It's a new world that many of us who have been around a while (I'm staring 66 in the face) have trouble adjusting to. There are great gains in this new world, but losses as well. I find it exciting, but I also miss some of the things that are being talked about on this thread.

We live in interesting times.

As I was reading this I assumed you'd say "bathroom". Not sure why

We are so glad we live in a culture where human relationships - in person - are still valued. But then, that's a major reason we moved here.

You have to have time for coffee.

Actually, I had a really great experience "unplugging" these last few days.

I was flying from St. Louis to London, and the attendants at the check-in desk had asked for people who were willing to check their carry on luggage in the hull, as they felt that there would be a lack of overhead compartment space. The look of panic and incredulity amongst the crowd was frightening. Being one who rarely refuses an opportunity to experiment, I volunteered, since no one else seemed willing to do so.

I realized that my phone, books, etc. had been checked away for the next fifteen hours, and that I would be alone with my thoughts, and I was rather interested to see how I would cope.

I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised. On the short leg from St. Louis to Chicago, I was able to sit next to a woman in her early 50's who I discovered (gasp - through actually speaking to her) was on her first-ever flight. She asked, so I held her hand during take-off and landing, and wished her well on her journey. I made an actual human connection !

The long leg from Chicago to London was equally pleasant, if for a different reason. Though the flight was packed, I managed to have the only aisle seat where no one was sitting next to me. I often fear sleeping on long-haul flights for the sake of the person who sits next to me, as I have a rather serious snoring issue, and usually arrive at my destination exhausted and needing a full day to recover. This time, I was able to sleep comfortably with a clear conscience, and there were no complaints from anyone. The true bonus was that I was only awoken once (for dinner) by what could have possibly been the most attractive airline stewardess I have ever seen. About 40, blonde, short skirt and the legs to pull it off. Thanks, British Airways!

Best. Flight. Ever.

When I got to London yesterday afternoon, my brother-in-law came round to ask me if I wanted to go out for a drink. Turns out he had organised about twelve mates, some who I have known for years, some who I was just meeting, ranging in ages from 24-40, for an impromptu pub crawl. My phone doesn't work in the UK, so no distractions there, and I wound up having the best night out I've had in years. Six whole hours of uninterrupted human interaction was a nice change of pace.

All with no Insta/Face/Space/Twit/Book.

Now thats the freaking best. Cat's kiester!!!

You two are some of the more friendly people I know. I consider myself shy and push through my self consciousness to seem outgoing, but in my head, I am going over a billion things to be shy about. Once I relax around someone and feel like I know them a bit, my shyness goes away and I feel more myself.

Irony is I am reading this.. On my phone

Not even to finish each other's sentences?

I'm in my 50's and even before all of this technology there were ways to tune people out. My ex used to have the radio full blast in the car, TV on at home and when we'd go out to eat, he'd read the paper!

If I wanted to date, It would be easy to rule out those who can't leave their phones alone. I'll admit, I'm completely addicted to my phone, but only when alone or when I don't want to be bothered. Never while walking around SF, I'm amazed at people when cross streets while never looking away from their phones. And while driving and riding bikes, just crazy!

A lot of people are afraid to be, or not allowed to be disconnected from their work, and smart phones allow one to be chained to the desk 24/7.

Our son is an IT tech for a major defense contractor. He has been issued a Blackberry and is expected to monitor it 24/365. They even pay his roaming charges when he is here, just in case one of the executives he supports needs a diaper change, which is an all too frequent occurrence. Heaven forbid they would have to call one one of the other techs who is not on vacation.

Dual posted. Oops

This has been the story in my house for over 10 years. Before the cell phone, it was a pager that would go off all hours, irony... I was the only one it would wake up. I then would have to wake my husband and let him know the damn thing was going off. One of my favorite moments was when my then 2 year old daughter, got car sick, no warning spewed as most kids do, and nailed the thing. Completely fried it. Haha. Good job kiddo!

I used to travel around a lot playing music and I had a system in place for sending postcards to girls I met along the way. Counterintuitively, for a shy person like me it's much easier to get up on stage and perform than to try to explain yourself to someone, and so much easier to express yourself by sending pictures with handwritten notes on the back than by talking to a stranger. It was fun and sweet and I still have all the cards I got back and am still in touch with some of them. A box full of old postcards with goofy handwriting on them beats an archive of old text messages sitting around on some cloud somewhere.

That said, if I weren't now set for life, I would probably really like texting and all that since I'm still shy and can't think of anything to say most of the time. I'm also under the impression that people are still getting together and talking, and more.

AV have him go up the Amazon for vacation. However they'd probably issue him a Sat-Nav. I hated my pager when i had to be on call 24/7 (when i was in town). On weekends if i was covering ICU's i had 2 of them. It never failed,the minute i'd get halfway thru a movie the damn pager would go off. People at the theater always gave me the evil eye. I can't imagine what my life would be like now. Some how the words "not paid enough "come to mind.

Judy- If the demands for his attention were even 1/4 as serious as what you probably were being called from the ER for, that would be a different matter. One exec emails him every time he arrives in a new location to see if his email is working from that location, for example. The exec is a retired Air Force colonel, and told our son that "commo checks" are very important. So son has to keep Blackberry by the bedside to be ready for "alerts" that a message has arrived. Why the exec won't email to the general IT Support email, where the tech on duty in the offices is available is another story. The exec feels he deserves a "personal IT tech", and the company allows such crap.

I could never be paid enough for such an imposition, but then I retired before such was a normal affair.

Oddly enough all my calls, in fact most of them could of been handled by the staff. However i did reinforce that they made the right decisions ( most times) which probably helped. However sometimes they were worse than siblings when it came to fighting amongst one another.

I've had friends before.

It's overrated.

On the other hand, I'm with the "got lucky at the casino, stepped away from the table" crowd (dated for ten years, married for two -- a cat and a dog later, it's still working out). To be fair, she lived two states away when we met, so my having wireless email/IM made maintaining the relationship possible in the first place.

pubs n nightclubs ... ya can always pull in them as me son dont do too bad ... you just have to be witty as fuck now though ... have you seen the shit they find funny now ....
or the old 'squeeze me .. ive lost my phone number ... can i have yours' .... maybe not