It’s interesting how people like to be contacted. Email. Phone. Video call. Text. DM. I really don’t love any of them, but I tolerate emails and texts the best. Honestly, I prefer happy hour as my preferred form of communication.
The hour (or two) will eventually end and if the conversation was worthwhile regardless of topics, I would be open to having another conversation at a different time. If not, done.
Happy hour involves an invitation and a response. A date. A time. A place. A drink. A phone call sneaks up on you when you least expect it and can interrupt you doing something important or doing nothing at all, which could be even more important. Zoom and FaceTime mean I have to think about what’s behind me. It’s funny now that everyone basically has a film set in their homes and a tiny theater to watch other people's shows. Letters are nice, but the odds of finding someone who wants to write back are low, and that demographic is currently dying off or can’t remember who you are anyway.
A few years back, I was giving this teenage kid a tour around Ann Arbor. He was visiting from Italy and staying with a friend of a family friend or something, but they had a family emergency and I had the day off, so I volunteered to take him to the art museum on campus. The whole time we walked around the galleries, he never checked his phone once. I was shocked.
After the art, I took him for tacos, which he got a kick out of, and then we went for espresso and to sit because he’s Italian. He finished his coffee and turned to me and said, “do you mind if I check my messages?” I was enjoying sitting, something I never do after coffee/lunch, and told him to go ahead.
Here’s the thing, his messages weren’t phone calls or emails or texts, but little audio snippets from friends. Like a walkie-talkie that could record. He listened and replied, listened and replied, and it took him about five minutes and then he put his phone away, and I never saw it again. Cool kid. I stood up to go, and he quickly pointed out we had not sat long enough to let lunch settle, so back to sitting. After all the sitting, he said it was time for a snack, so I took him over to Zingerman’s, and he said their Prosciutto was shit. It was a good day.
I need to incorporate checking messages more in my life. Constantly refreshing a page or an app is such a waste of time. It’s the same as waiting on the mail or UPS. It’ll get there when it gets there. Looking out the window every ten minutes will only drive you crazy.
The hour (or two) will eventually end and if the conversation was worthwhile regardless of topics, I would be open to having another conversation at a different time. If not, done.
Happy hour involves an invitation and a response. A date. A time. A place. A drink. A phone call sneaks up on you when you least expect it and can interrupt you doing something important or doing nothing at all, which could be even more important. Zoom and FaceTime mean I have to think about what’s behind me. It’s funny now that everyone basically has a film set in their homes and a tiny theater to watch other people's shows. Letters are nice, but the odds of finding someone who wants to write back are low, and that demographic is currently dying off or can’t remember who you are anyway.
A few years back, I was giving this teenage kid a tour around Ann Arbor. He was visiting from Italy and staying with a friend of a family friend or something, but they had a family emergency and I had the day off, so I volunteered to take him to the art museum on campus. The whole time we walked around the galleries, he never checked his phone once. I was shocked.
After the art, I took him for tacos, which he got a kick out of, and then we went for espresso and to sit because he’s Italian. He finished his coffee and turned to me and said, “do you mind if I check my messages?” I was enjoying sitting, something I never do after coffee/lunch, and told him to go ahead.
Here’s the thing, his messages weren’t phone calls or emails or texts, but little audio snippets from friends. Like a walkie-talkie that could record. He listened and replied, listened and replied, and it took him about five minutes and then he put his phone away, and I never saw it again. Cool kid. I stood up to go, and he quickly pointed out we had not sat long enough to let lunch settle, so back to sitting. After all the sitting, he said it was time for a snack, so I took him over to Zingerman’s, and he said their Prosciutto was shit. It was a good day.
I need to incorporate checking messages more in my life. Constantly refreshing a page or an app is such a waste of time. It’s the same as waiting on the mail or UPS. It’ll get there when it gets there. Looking out the window every ten minutes will only drive you crazy.