Working on My 3D TV Tan

Tuesday, 28th January 1997

"Got a call from an old friend, we used to be real close..."

Over the weekend, using what's called a Yahoo! e-mail address search, I looked up an American friend, a good friend with whom I lost contact almost three years ago, to see if he was on the system. Bit of a long shot as he was a confirmed technophobe when I knew him. However, a name matching his in a plausible US location appeared in the search, so I sent a tentative e-mail and waited.

Call me Bob Hoskins, but it is true: nobody wants to be the first to get in touch, to pick up that phone or write that letter. Nobody wants to be disappointed, to find out they've been forgotten, or that they're being inconvenient, or thought of as sad for doing such a thing, by the person they once called a friend. Sometimes it's laziness that stops people from making that connection, but mostly it's fear. And people don't remember how warming and wonderful it is to get a bolt from the blue from someone they once thought a hell of a lot of (maybe because it's never happened to them, but can you think why it's never happened?). You risk losing a lot of face calling on a friend you haven't seen in ages. But then...

Checked my mailbox last night when I got home to find I'd received a long mail from Philadelphia that began "Dude, it's about time..."