Not Enough Information

   

Peers did not have profiles. No one could be tracked down by a microchip and a satellite. Clues were not left in 120 characters.  The only means of conversing with another was either in person or on a phone that was connected to a cord inside your house.

No one ever knew for certain where any one else was.

Because there was no social media when I was a teenager. Social arrangements were made by best guesses and faith. The only way to stalk a crush was to actually stalk them.

Which is how I spent hours on end during the months of June, July and August in 1976—cruising for a cause. My girlfriends and I piled into a Chevy Suburban, listened to 8-track tapes of Elton John and Mott the Hoople, and drove every inch of the village of Dobbs Ferry pursuing a beige 9 passenger Buick station wagon whose driver was the object of desire of the leader of our pack.

The process was very inefficient and not particularly “green”—particularly when you consider that we had already survived one gas crisis and were driving around in an 8 mile to the gallon truck.

It was also frustrating. No sooner did we arrive at one location only to discover that the stalk-ee had driven off minutes before into the unknown. And when we did serendipitously spot the wanted vehicle with its carload of Archbishop Stepinac High School rising seniors, it was always traveling in the other direction—and by the time we turned around, the hot lead had gone stone cold.

In my day, meeting up with boys was like chasing the wind.

And while the down side nowadays to having the ability to track someone down at any moment in time is the ability to be tracked down by someone at any time, it is so much better than driving around aimlessly without a seatbelt listening to the same 8 track tapes for hours at a time—even if the company was entertaining.  

Socializing would have been so much easier if only we had had some cell phones. Because while this is a new world of too much information, it sure beats having none at all.