…whatever happened to us?
We used to talk all of the time…
…and smile and say “hello” when we passed each other…
…and wave at each other when we saw each other on the street.
Has anyone else noticed how people just aren’t sociable anymore? I noticed this trend when jogging around the lake recently. Everyone has headphones in…walkers, joggers… I am guilty too, but I still try to expel a winded “….hey…” or ” ‘ood mornin’ ” when I run by people. Sometimes they don’t even acknowledge my presence. Don’t get me started on the neighbors, I try to wave and say hi and they hide behind a bush! [Wait a second… maybe it’s just me :^) ]
What brought this to mind though was the grocery store. At our local supermarket you can get a made to order sandwich. And you don’t have to utter a word to get it! You go up to a kiosk that is no more than 5 feet from the deli counter, punch in your meats, bread, cheese and condiment selection on a handy-dandy touch screen, and wait for your number to be called. Voila! You have a custom sandwich, you didn’t actually have to talk to the person behind the counter, and you can drive your airconditioned vehicle back home so you can get quickly back to Facebook or video games or whatever. Talking… how antiquated.
And I just checked in on-line for my flight tomorrow to AIM’s breakthru conference and world race training. That’s one less person I have to talk to in the morning…convenient, yes. But not a good way to run a society, I think. Hopefully it’s still different in the South. AIM’s headquarters is in Gainesville, Georgia, near Atlanta. Hopefully I get a chance to see the Georgia Tech campus, stop at the Varsity, and get to see family I haven’t seen in too long!