​Given how frequently I am on Facebook, and the fact I have – and regularly post on – a blog it may seem unlikely to state that I am actually quite behind the times as far as social media goes.  I was a late starter on Facebook, and my brief forray on Twitter resulted in some weirdo pretending to be the police and harassing me to the extent that I got Google et al to delete me from all searches, years before this was actually a thing.  I briefly experimented with online dating, as I’m sure everyone has by the wise old age of 33, it didn’t end well.  I was taught how to lucid dream, so it was a well-spent nine months in that respect if nothing else.

Phonecalls terrify me; I am definitely the sort of person you should phone twice in an emergency, the first time I’ll have been pretending that I can’t find my phone.  See/hear no evil style. 

I’ve had to accept over time that the disaster which is video conferencing is a part of life in the City, but I have never embraced Skype etc.  The idea that someone can see you IN YOUR HOME and from a very terrible angle appalls me.  99% of the time I will be in my gymkit and it could well be the same gymkit third day in a row, even if it is many hours before or after running.  Yes, I’m gross.  Note: If I’m running to the pub I do try to wear fresh gymkit, so it only has 6-8km worth of sweat in it, but this cannot be guaranteed if pub is a surprise, bendyarm situation.

As far back as I can remember I’ve been a letter writer, I love a postcard, a Christmas card, a paper invitation, a letter just to say hello or thank you, notecards in class, letters underneath doors in boarding houses at school and bizarre ladies-only boarding houses off Broadway…  Then became the life invasion which was email.  So much email.  In the City it was hundreds a day; it’s so easy, especially if you type 69 words a minute with 99.9% accuracy (I used to work as an office temp and was tested) (thank you, Mavis Beacon circa 1997). 

For years almost all communication has been email; everything is on email, hours a day critiquing other people’s decisions, mistakes, and emails.  Emailing your parents where you’d probably otherwise and in a past life call them.  Emailing yourself when you need to remember to do something; and always that “oh” feeling when the new email in your inbox is from yourself……

And then there’s emails from old friends, or – as I’ve experienced since starting sharing my adventure – new friends from old situations, or friends of friends.  Penpals in the 2020 sense of the word.  People you would possibly struggle to talk to in person (tbh I’m still super awkward one on one with people I’ve known for a decade) but to whom it seems perfectly easy to chat to via email.  Who share your life vicariously and you look forward to hearing their perspectives, to whom it makes sense to open up your current struggles or share elations.  From whom you’ve also heard their past and current trials and how they can equate to what you’re doing now, provide ever valuable advice and encouragement.

The mediums of communication therefore have a perfect limit for me; I want to invite people into my life, my heart, and to share this wonderful experience.  I am delighted by letters and emails, kind words out of the blue, postcards from your wonderful travels – or just from home.

But no Skype.