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 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l