hummm

[retro_geek]

It's only when you meet someone without access to a mobile, is rarely on msn and doesn't have a facebook (though does have an occaisionally used myspace), that you realise how much we really do depend on new-fangled techno rubbish to construct our social/romantic habits.

I wonder what it was like before mobiles and the internet? When the family landline was the only method of communication, and you the supposed casualness of texting/internet contact wasn't an option to hopefully convey that all-important "I don't care too much about this, honest" vibe when you're still getting to know someone.  I wonder how many potential romances were doomed before they even started because of misinterpreted tones of voice (too nervous teen girls? too sulky unresponsive teen boys?), or even because chatty mothers/older sisters were always on the one phone in the house and so the poor lust-struck kid, having finally plucked up the courage to phone the number scrawled on the back of the cloakroom ticket they found in the pocket of thier 'going out' jeans, can't actually get through. Did anyone actually ever wait by the phone for them to call, as I have been led to believe by people of a certain age? Was that how it worked- you went out to the local disco (or gig in a Church hall, if you live near me) on a saturday night, snogged on the dancefloor, and then spent the Sunday after with one ear out for phone ringing, getting splenetic at any pesky family members who may spending too much time on that precious land line? And of course, you couldn't do the thing of getting a vague idea of what they're like by picking through thier facebook/myspace/whatever...

How different times must of been back then. Then again, per'aps I've got others' rose-tinted glasses obscuring my vision...

Comments

[ohdearyme.livejournal.com]

Even though I'm younger than you, I remember back when things were like that. Perhaps our family just cottoned on to modern technology slowly.

[retro-geek.livejournal.com]

hehe, or maybe my memory is worse than yours...

[skellingtonjon.livejournal.com]

I must have been a late starter. I don't remember those days. Though I do remember my mum telling me off for being on the 'phone to Kim Horne for too long...

[corporalcorpse.livejournal.com]

I never realised you were a fan of the 'Colt! Respect!

To actually address your post: I remember having a single dial-up phone line in the house and it was fucking shit.

[retro-geek.livejournal.com]

ah, I love the 'Colt! They're a band I keep forgetting about and then I sporadically rediscover them, and how good they were, and annoy my family by plying them REALLY loudly in my room! :-) they spilt up before I got to see them live though. Did you ever catch them? what were they like?

Now I think about it, I do remeber when we had only that sole phone line, and frustratingly you couldn't have the internet and be on the phone to someone at the same time. But those wee innocent days when I was too much of a young'un to be snogging people on sweaty dancefloors and debating whether to call them the next day *sigh*...I miss being all adorably young and innocent!