Communications

It's a rare occurrence for me to check my emails; even more rare than me checking my older email address. I currently claim ownership of two separate accounts, completely going against everything nineteen-year-old me stands for. The way nineteen-year-old me sees it, you are one person, therefore you only need one account. One email address, one bank account, one phone contract, one place to live, one plot of earth to rest, one gravestone. Anything more is just wasted extravagance. Nowadays, 24-year-old me (a.k.a. me) is faced with a certain sense of uncertain future and feels like the only thing he can control in his life is the amount of online presence he has. Also he displays a tendency to switch perspective from first- to third-person mid-paragraph.

The latest addition to my vast roster of two electronic communication channels happens to be a Gmail account, courtesy of that powerhouse of search engines (and the only website your nan has ever heard of), Google. I'll be honest with you, having a Gmail account is great. Emails are easy to access. Whenever I stupidly sign up to websites that churn out newsletters and notifications every seven seconds they get automatically filed away as "Social" or "Promotional" or something I don't give a crap about, leaving only the actual ones in my actual inbox. Connectivity to many things is easier, including this blog right here. Yes, you there reading this. Hello. I'm able to communicate this to you a lot easier now thanks to Google. Hell, if anybody were even to actively search for this particular one there's a fairly decent chance Google might put it somewhere near the top ten of all found results. Furthermore, I don't get spam.

Previously, in my email account history, Hotmail (currently known as Outlook and formerly affiliated with the virtual equivalent of an early 2000s youth centre, MSN Messenger) was the only channel of communication I used on a regular basis. Since the end of my University adventures some three months ago, though, the place has been fairly abandoned, gathering virtual messages equivalent to a discarded yogurt pot gathering fluffy green bits. And that's just the inbox. The spam folder however... let's just say that if it was a person that needed taking to a virtual hospital, I'd probably have to check it in for cases of diphtheria, polio, meningitis, high cholesterol, liver failure, appendicitis, a broken leg, tennis elbow, a lodged Tic Tac in one nostril and (apparently) erectile dysfunction. The only reason I haven't pulled the plug on its life support yet is that, on occasion, it may still prove useful. And behold and lo...

A series of communications between a past uni tutor and myself have unfolded, skipping over the fact that it might actually be better to get in touch with me another, more Google-orientated way. Ultimately, we've briefly had the "what are you doing now that uni's finished?" discussion, with potential University-related opportunities being mused over by both him and me in a blind attempt at (a) remaining a part of the University family after my recent graduation, and (b) giving me something to do.

As it happens, we've now progressed to the stage where, semi-awkwardly, he's asked me if I want to go out for coffee. This could, of course, quite simply be an innocent offer of meeting up and having this discussion in person rather than in words. Cold, static, Times New Roman words. However, there's a little part of me that is aware of the underlying meaning of two people going out for coffee. Heck, I even wrote a shite story about it; one which this same tutor marked fairly poorly due to its obvious shitness. Anyway, there's a certain awkwardness about the idea of meeting up with my past tutor for coffee in this way. For starters, he's not really my type. For other starters, I don't actually like coffee.

Needless to say, I have tentatively accepted his invitation to meet up since it'd be nice to have a bit of a catch-up and hopefully get a chance to hang around the University campus for a little while longer. However, I must stress that I have only accepted purely on the pretence that there's no funny business.