Isn't it great how technology allows people to connect and communicate?

[cosmolinguist]

I was sitting just outside Stockport train station, reading a book and waiting for sablin1975. Mostly I was concentrating on my book, but I was peripherally aware of people going into and out of the building, dragging luggage, talking on their phones, meeting other people; the sort of stuff you'd expect at a train station.

But at one point I began to suspect that there was something very unexpected going on.

I happened to catch a bit of some girl's phone conversation ... which is not unexpected. But then, I heard a reply from some guy, talking into his phone, that seemed like it could plausibly be part of the same conversation.

I looked up and watched these two. Even when I couldn't hear what they were saying, I noticed that they never talked at the same time. And they were both trying to find someone. Could I really be seeing what I thought I was seeing? Could two people be so unobservant that a half-blind stranger figured this out before they did?

Then I heard the girl say "I'm at the entrance ... is there more than one entrance?" After a pause, in which her phone sent the sound of her voice to some satellite and back down to his phone, a few yards away, he replied, "No, there are two ..."

Thus removing any doubt that I may be misinterpreting this.

I sat back to watch the show. I was sort of glad I'd noticed it when I did, for it was rather amusing, and surely it couldn't last more than a couple of seconds.

But it did. It dragged out until it became more painful to watch. Not because I really cared that these two friends weren't yet reunited, but because it annoyed me that the world could work so inefficiently. I had to do something.

"You guys are talking to each other," I said, knowing it probably wouldn't work because they were so intent on listening to their phones rather than to the din around them (which wasn't much of a din, and which, if they had listened, might've meant they'd notice that they were hearing the same thing in both ears ...) but I happened to be looking at the girl and pointedly pointed from her to the guy and back.

I tried it again, looking at him instead of her, "You're talking to her, aren't you?", and pointing again, but to no avail. Ah well, I'd tried.

I lost interest and went back to my book, which was telling me about what silly creatures humans are, as if I needed to be reminded.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's like something Samuel Beckett might have imagined....

[emyjo.livejournal.com]

Ain't that the truth?

Except at the end, people would die tragically. They'd be so distraught at not finding one another that they'd just give up and buy rope.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Let's hope this drama had a Shakespearian ending.

"journey's end in lovers' meetings"

[cosmolinguist]

They did end up figuring it out soon after I gave up on watching them. I'm pretty sure they did; I wasn't paying much attention at that point. :-)

[emyjo.livejournal.com]

Probably the greatest story I've heard today.

I mustn't forget to point out how much I adore the fact that you pointedly pointed between the two.

Ahh, humans. Is it just me, or are we de-evolving? Pre-cell phones, those people would've said something like "I'll meet you under the big clock at the southwest enterance," and both of them would've known exactly where that was and wouldn't have wasted that time standing practically next to one another and too absorbed in talking to one another to actually look for one another. Nowadays we don't even know which was is southwest without a GPS. I certainly don't. We're letting machines do our thinking for us, which, to the contrary of what most people probably believe, we're actually gettind dumber. This is, of course, an over-simplification, but a handful of people in a lab somewhere are designing machines as quickly as we identify the need to lessen the necessity of actual thinking.

[cosmolinguist]

I ended up thinking this "before cell phones..." stuff myself, especially because I'd accidentally gotten to the station early (for once the public transport wasn't awful! and on a weekend!) and I thought if I had a phone that worked I could've texted my friend to tell him so. But then I also thought that he'd be showing up soon anyway and if I plopped myself down somewhere obvious we'd find each other. Just like in the good old days, before cell phones.

Then these two made me think that those good old days were certainly good, indeed.

[davmoo.livejournal.com]

You have just experienced "David's First Law of Humanity"...given the chance, people will be stupid :-)

[sablin1975.livejournal.com]

I would just have sat and watched and said nothing.Or,laughed if I told them.

Thank God for stupidity :)

[cosmolinguist]

Well, I did sit and do nothing for a while, and then I laughed and told them. The best of both worlds.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

That's amazing.