Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The instant I logged onto Gmail today, I could feel it–the dull, pervasive specter of not caring. My hope is a return to normalcy when I wake up tomorrow, but even as I type this, part of me is surprised it took so long for this wave of apathy to hit. I thought it would’ve happened a lot sooner, frankly, because an equation with exponentially increased sociability felt too unbalanced. A correction had to happen, somehow. That old surliness couldn’t have just disappeared, after all.

To be clear, I wasn’t in a foul mood. That would’ve been arguably better, because you still feel the fire when you’re mad. It’s just a darker fire. No, apathy means a total absence of fire. In the usual course of a good conversation, whether electronic or face-to-face, there is a healthy give-and-take, an appreciation for both the text and the subtext, what is said and unsaid. But when you don’t care, you either flat out ignore the talk or you cut straight to the subtext, with little personal capital invested in niceties.

“Join my network on LinkedIn” isn’t an avenue of opportunity, so much as a prelude to an awkward cold call. “How was your week?” translates to “Ask me about mine.” “Know anybody interested in this job opening?” is a coy way of asking “Are you interested?” Like I said, no room for niceties. I’m digging for the punchline as if it were a truffle.

And “Happy New Year’s! The alumni association is gearing up for the following events, and I’ve done so and so…” really means “It’s time for you to do some pro bono work.” Some bright news on that front is I’ve managed to stop the phone solicitations for donations. Previously I had attempted to replace my phone number with some random digits, but the goddamn database would keep restoring my real number. So I had to wean it off my legitimate contact info, one number at a time, until I found satisfaction. Now, those fresh-faced eager beavers are simply routed to a local Papa John’s, where any mention of Big Ten would merely elicit the response that, no, the $10 special for a large cheese pizza expired a long time ago.