Great Ideas ranjeet on 07 Dec 2006 02:47 am
Meeting People Is NOT Easy
(note: this was originally written in 1999)
I hate meeting new people. It’s a royal pain in the ass. If I had it my way, I would never have to meet new people, only dealing with the people I already know. The astute reader is probably wondering if I realize that at some point I had to meet my current friends. Well I am aware of that, thank you very much, and I must inform you that it was indeed a painful and laborious process. To make a person a good friend you have to invest soooooo much time into them. Time that person with a busy lifestyle or a heavy workload simply cannot afford. You need to get to know each others likes and dislikes, hobbies, background, opinions, those stupid little stories that everyone tells each other, etc. And after all that, there’s a chance that you might not even like them! Then it’s just all been a waste of your time. Well, I have a solution to this dilemma, obviously, or else I wouldn’t be writing this.
It’s actually blindingly simple. The answer is the personal introductory video. The only things you need are a videocamera and the equipment needed to copy a lot of tapes. In this video, you describe yourself, your opinions, maybe even let it follow you around for a while so that the prospective friend can see how you live. If you find talking to the camera disconcerting, you can just take the camera along the next time you make a friend in the “conventional” manner. Then, you’ll only have to do it once. The point is, this third party can view the tape at their leisure, perhaps late at night when they can’t sleep, sitting in just their underwear on some old ratty couch in their living room. In other words, at a time when it would be inconvenient or uncomfortable for you to be there in person. Not understand something I said? Just push the rewind button. No need for you to annoy me with your “What?”‘s and “Pardon?”‘s and your “If you don’t back off from me I’ll file a restraining order”‘s and your “Sorry, when I said ‘Hi’ to you I was just being polite”‘s. And if you have to go somewhere but I’m in the middle of a charming anecdote, you don’t need to wait till an opportune moment to interrupt and ditch me, you can just press pause. If you decide that you wish to become friends with me, you can just then call me up and see what I thought of your video tape. And then we can have a nice 30-day trial friendship, with no obligations and a full money-back guarantee. Best of all, I think, is that I only need to say all of that once. Really, I think that’s the most tedious part: repeating your own “Song of Myself” every single time you meet a fellow traveler on the gigantic wearying journey called life. Right now, to alleviate the boredom, I make up new stuff everytime I meet someone new, but really, that can’t hold up for long, and I don’t think it makes the police very happy.
So I encourage all of you to pick up your camcorders and give it a try. Make your directorial debut a good one.