Today I am Grateful For…

I am grateful that I remember a time before cell phones. A time when you had to wait for someone to call. You had to make plans and stick to them and trust that your friends would show up at a decided location at a predetermined time. Guys had to ask you out to your face. You had to blush and say yes or no. I am so glad I got through adolescence awkwardly making real connections with real people, learning how to make eye contact; rather than worrying about whether or not I should add another girl on Snapchat so I can see what her life is like and debating whether adding her the day after meeting her would be too weird. (I actually overheard this conversation between three 19 year olds in the gym locker room yesterday.) I am glad the social norms of my day were based on actual interpersonal interaction. If we wanted to be friends with someone, we just talked to them and became friends; perhaps we positioned ourselves favorably in history class so we could have a reason to speak to them. But we spoke to them. Directly. Like human beings. We experienced things in real-time instead of spending so much time documenting it all. I hope someday we as a society will learn to balance our use of social media and be normal people again. Let’s bring back the Art of Conversation.