Things I Miss

Now that I am officially old enough (ok, I have met the criteria for quite some time, to be honest) to reminisce about "the good old times", let me mention a few things I sincerely miss from the not-so-distant past...like less than 10 years ago.

1. Phone conversations. By that I mean actual conversations and not just brief updates that are amendments to messages or 5-second-calls along the lines of "Just got off the tram, will be there in 2 minutes. I can already see you.". I recently read a report that many people actually feel seriously annoyed when they get phone calls and people don't message instead. I am not one of these people and my phone gets used for voice calls less and less, which I regret. Don't get me wrong, I do like messaging people, but I dislike the obsessive element (guilty as charged) of interpreting why a message has been received and obviously "read", but not responded to within the time I deem "normal" and think back wistfully of the time when you called someone and by the simple fact that they picked up their phone (=landline) you could assume that they had time for a chat and decent catch-up and you could count on their undivided attention, more or less. If they had been in a meeting/at dinner, they would not have picked up and you would have called back later. Simple as that.

2. Spontaneous Get-togethers. I know, I know, this is largely due to the demographic of my friend circle (= 95% of them have children which require to be babysat and/or they have demanding jobs...the adults, that is, not the children), but it verges on frustrating to have to align with 5 people's schedules if you want to meet one member of the family, only to then be cancelled upon at the last minute. Admittedly, I only need to synch with me, myself and I, but even so, I tend to travel more than the average person and yet have been known to come to dinner parties, exhibition openings, etc. more or less straight from the airport if I wanted to see that person. Whatever the reason is, it seems to require such an effort to meet up with people and for me, group chats are a poor substitute, see 1.

3. Openly and blatantly un-sporty people. Back in the days when "running" was still called "jogging" and I was just as NOT attracted to the activity associated with it, only a rare minority of freaks had heard of triathlons or would list "working out" as one of their hobbies (this was back in the days when you still called it "hobbies"). Regardless of the fact that some people seem to regard workouts as the necessary evil to earn those instagrammable "post-workout smoothies" or protein shakes (bleurgh), I often feel that I am the only person on the face of the planet who is not preparing for at least a half marathon and who does not own an activity tracker. Even Swarovski has come out with a girly version now, but I still am not the target group.

4. Postcards. I love receiving them as well as writing them myself (ok, possibly the receiving part a little more...) but it has become harder to find them even in tourist destinations as thanks to WiFi and cheaper data roaming updating your loved ones with blurry selfies via WhatsApp has replaced them. 

5. Cars that don't look like clones. Not all that long ago, different car models by different manufacturers looked decidedly different. Nowadays, cars within the same price segment look strikingly similar in a very boring, uninspired way. Yawn. Handbags do too, as a matter of fact. I am looking at you, Michael Kors!

What do you miss?