Not to be strange or anything, but you remind me of someone I know...

We're all creatures of habit generally, I think so anyway. Most people tend to eat the same or similar foods, wear a similar style of clothing, shop at the same supermarket, prefer a certain brand of car and drink and the like. It feels comfortable I guess. I'm no different. Each morning I have a coffee and breakfast at the same cafe near my home. I can make my own eggs and coffee I suppose but for me it sets up my day. It's my time to review the day ahead, highlight any part of it that needs extra attention and allows me to set my goals for that particular day. It also helps me determine how soon I can get home and live my true life.

As you can imagine I'm considered a regular by my friend who owns the cafe, and other patrons because I'm there every day. Some of the other patrons and I chat from time to time and with a few of them I have quite lengthy conversations now and then. It's nice, familiar and non-invasive generally.

The other day however I received the message you see pictured (via Facebook Messenger) from one of the patrons I have never spoken to or acknowledged. It didn't freak me out but seemed a little odd that someone, a complete stranger, could reach into my life in this way, no matter where I was at the time. (I happened to be out in the country side culling feral pests). The sender had tracked me down from my Facebook page as the cafe owner and I are friends on Facebook and my friend and the sender are also. I don't use my real name on Facebook, just some initials but I have a photo of me so she's obviously made the connection that way.

I was with a mate when the message came through and held the phone over to him. He read the first couple of lines and and lost interest pretty quickly. "You're not replying are you?" he said with disdain. Now, I was not going to at first; Not because the strangeness of it but just due to me obviously not being George and that helping this lady clarify her thoughts isn't really on my radar. Partly also because I'm a little bit old-school in that if I was in her position I would simply have asked the question face-to-face. I believe effective communication and person-to-person interaction is being destroyed by social media platforms like Facetwit and Instasnap and I don't value that. That's my old-school thinking again. I am good at communication and therefore prefer doing so person to person, in person. I also don't mind meeting new people. Despite having a small friends group by choice I believe there's a lot to be learned, and understood, by interaction with other people.

Anyway, I'm not an unapproachable guy. I am well dressed, impeccably dressed in fact, for my work day and considering I am here at the cafe a lot (even as I write this post in fact), I would have thought this lady could have asked me the question face to face. To be honest, she could have quite easily asked the cafe owner what my name was and gotten the information she needed without messaging me.All of this went through my mind when the message came in and so I wondered if there was some other agenda and this was the persons way of reaching out, breaking the ice so to speak.

Because I am polite and well-mannered I responded to the message, and advised the person I was indeed not George and wished her luck in tracking her blast from the past down. Her reply apologised for the mistake, the message being full of little smiley emoji's and things. My last reply was "all good, it happens. No harm done"

So here's the thing...The next day I was at the cafe for breakfast. No surprise there. The person, walked in. Well, I was pretty sure it was her because in real life she doesn't look anything like the image on her message which is a snapgram filter or some such idiotic thing. She looked directly at me, walked over, said hello and started to apologise for the message. Ok, now we're communicating in a way I understand. We had a little chat about the George character she thought I was and it turns out she's not looking for him at all, she simply she saw me and thought I was him. She went to school with him some 20 years ago apparently. I'm 47 so that means she mistook me for someone over 20 years my junior. Damn! I must look good for my age! :)

Moving forward some two or so weeks we are now on speaking terms at the cafe. We say things like, "good morning" and "hey, how are you?" and the old faithful, "how was your weekend." There's a smile involved typically and a friendly "goodbye" at the end. It's all rather pleasant and communicative. No Zuckerberg-owned software involved.

My point? We'll, I'm not sure I have one. I suppose maybe, that whilst it might seem less awkward to communicate through a computer or phone humans are not designed to be isolated. We are social beings and have been since...well, since forever. Neanderthals communicated and in fact had a complex social structure despite the lack of Facebook. I believe that to isolate oneself by reaching out by text or messenger can only lead to the break-down of social skills. It's probably too late for most but I prefer interaction. That's even evident on steemit as well. If someone interacts with me through a valid comment I'll hit them back in kind but the cursory "nice post my steemit friend" will get treated accordingly.

Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default
@galenkp