Talking To Strangers

I was sitting in the library's reading room - there are so many places to read and study all over the campus and once you find one or two you like, just good solid places where there are maybe a few couches to catch up on that sleep you've been cheating yourself of, you know, with plush, quicksand cushions that always help you remember that there really isn't anything else that needs doing right now; and probably some tables too so you can get some actual work done too if that's your thing; ideally there's some background noise going on as well, just regular conversations about the rent or that prof or molecular biology that exists right below the threshold so that you aren't distracted by things that do not matter, but at the same time are freed from the deathly vacuum that exists in other, more austere areas of the university, that grim, unsmiling silence that takes hold of the slightest rustle or the demurest cough and shares it intimately with everyone in around.

Right, I was in this reading room - they installed a cafe in it earlier this year, or maybe it was the year before, they proudly brew Starbucks you should know, but otherwise they are small and unobtrusive and while it has made the room a little louder, it's all just part of the atmosphere, just part of the knowledge that ideas are free flowing in the air all around you and that this room is alive with people, which can make all the difference - this reading room I was in, right, and I am sitting at a table, long, ugly, dark wood composite table, one of many, with my laptop in front of me - this is a laptop day today, not every day is blessed with my laptop because it is not everyday that I have scheduled six hours breaks in between my classes, and even if everyday did give me six hours of downtime, my laptop is a regular table shark, just a big massive beauty who does not take to being dragged around too well, not that my back is so crazy about the arrangement either, so we keep our excursions brief and infrequent - anyway I am plugged into my laptop, headphones in the jack and music on the media player and I am my own island, everything I said before about atmosphere to the contrary. I am trying to catch up on missed lectures, the professor too reliant on Powerpoint presentations and myself too reliant on snooze buttons, so this is my chance to catch up on Ancient Mesopotamia, the Babylonians are doing fine thanks, but watch out for those Hittites.

And then all that gets tossed away because she shows up and I am thrown into one of those weird situations that I try to avoid, that is specifically, interacting with other living people. It's a computer problem she has, the existential problem of this 21st century: how do I connect to the internet? We're both sporting Vista; OS's are OS's to me but there people out there with opinions and there's nothing more dangerous than than a person with an opinion, and I can see that this lady is quickly developing an unfavourable one for Microsoft's latest baby.

Something's not right, something's not right, the internet is so close, and so far, she's driving alongside the info highway desperate for that on ramp, desperate for a way in. She's come to the wrong guy; I turn my lappie on, I click that firefox, I type that password and I am good, there are no speed bumps, things work the way they should just like they always do and I do not ask questions of my technology. But things are all wrong for her. She pulls up a chair, woah hey buy a guy some dinner first, you know? but this social contract is already sealed and I am too nice a guy, too starved for human contact to turn her away, not that there was ever an option for that any way.

I try to help, I do, but it is clear that of the two I'm the slightly more computer literate, which spells trouble for both of us. I run through basic stuff, just kid games really, nothing that really gets at the problem, whatever it is, I don't know what goes on inside those things. I can access the net on my still functioning machine, and I do, but there is no help there, and still we are throwing ideas at that stubborn connection, always with that "Technology huh, what are you gonna do?" resigned smile and resignation. I'm bad with strangers, too worried about what they see in me, or maybe what they don't see so I'm a hurried ball of nervous energy. Attempts at conversation sputter, though we are friendly enough. Names are never exchanged, not necessary or wanted. We give up eventually. Technology has trumped man again, and she finds somewhere else to sit, reduced to listening to pleasant muzak while she waits for a techie somewhere to finish his lunch break or get bored of berating another lovable end user for getting that cold cut stuck in the CD drive.

I was sorry I couldn't help her, sorry I wasted both our time, sorry I couldn't be the white knight with a kiss on the cheek my only reward, sorry that computers are so necessary yet and so stupid.