Well, a new venture attempts to conjure a solution for people like you. It's for those who enter the world through their laptops, PDAs or other electronic, non-tactile ways and have slowly realised they've forgotten what stale cigarette smoke smells like. Aping a same-name organisation in London, Manchester's very own Social Media Café corralled up to around seventy (allegedly) Digital Misfits - sorry, I mean Creative Digerati - enabling them to have some 'face time'.
Only thing was is this:
1) If you already have a reasonably healthy social life you would never be drawn to such an event as this, because... 2) ...it is only ever going to attract people who've spent the last few years interacting in their bedrooms with their PC's. Therefore, you know, they're not going to necessarily be people who are comfortable talking to other real people. Now imagine the horror of a whole room full of people like this; released from literally years of smiling fixedly at their 'puter screens - all of a sudden at large in Our World.
It was indeed a curious sociological phenomenon to regard at first hand (and I did, albeit briefly, before running toward the exit, my half-drunk pint forgotten on a table, my half-drunk self fighting panic). Judging from the facial expressions on many of the attendees this was the first time in a very long time they had spoken to living, breathing sentient beings. Their eyes stared in wonder and you could almost hear them thinking: "Wow, the skin texture and hair on this one is incredibly real...".
The 'Oh My God I've Forgotten All The Rules Regarding How To Communicate' frisson that underscored the evening was brilliantly highlighted by the Chairperson 'streaming' ill-lit, pixellated-to-shit live random moments from her Nokia to those who had wanted to attend but had found they no longer remembered how to leave their flat.
And the Tweets..! I swear to God there were people in the midst of this first inaugural SMC - designed as I say, to get people actually speaking together - who found they simply had to Tweet about this being the first inaugural SMC, and then other people standing right next to them began excitedly reading those same Tweets from their own phones. From the relative safety of outdoors I Tweeted back my simple goodbye to them:
"Gotta go - 2 Kafka-esque 4 me x".
As I strolled purposefully away I heard the beep of up to around seventy (allegedly) mobile phones.
...If this sounds like your cup of tea the next one is scheduled very soon.
