but why on earth would you want to live like that, the world of your last few comments? what kind of life is it, sitting isolated in a room, creating things remotely via your phone or computer, never meeting a person? never having a chat about the weather or basketball playoffs with the neighbor on your way to the store, never hearing a funny story from the store clerk, never running into an old friend on your stroll back from the store, never getting fresh air and a little exercise as you stroll? never stopping to smell the roses, literally or figuratively?
stunted life.
Some people do aspire to that kind of thing though, they hate those little interactions.
We did airbnb for a bit in London and there was a guy who was half Swiss half kiwi I think who stayed an extra day in London just for something to do and asked us to take him out. And he was talking about Swiss culture and just how the way he saw us interact with the people in the shop or on the bus would never happen in Switzerland, how people just kinda hide in their little bubbles and get really scared if someone says more than the total minimum "hello" in their interaction. His dad, the Kiwi half I guess, had said to him "Switzerland is great and everything but for God's sake don't spend all the time there cos you need to see other cultures that are less repressed".
Oh and we got a fri... an acquaintance here that my girlfriend knew from Russia, he is a huge bell-end to be honest but when he was in Moscow he got food delivered every single day, I don't think he knows how to cook. And now he buys stupid gadgets all the time, his house has all this "smart this" and "smart that" - a smart corkscrew, what the fuck is a smart corkscrew. Also he has all these lights that are programmed which is just really shit cos you can't turn them on and off as you need them... programmed lights is a fucking dumb idea, you can't possibly know which lights you are gonna require to have on and off in various points of the house at a given time tomorrow, never mind next week (as someone said, he doesn't need smart lights he needs a dimmer switch). This guy's boyfriend is the guy I said who went mental cos he took the wrong way driving us home and had to go over the long bridge, anyway, the point is he has a really really bad temper and if you go round there you always see him losing his shit cos he can't turn on the smart light or open the smart fridge or something and every time i visit he has ended up going in the bedroom and sulking (he's like 50 years old I should say). In fact I think he fucked off back to France so Denis has his stupid smart house, orders food from deliveroo, men from Grindr and he has videos set up at home filming the dog and if it climbs on the sofa or whatever while he is out flying his drone he can shout at it.
Also, sometimes he will phone and he will say "Do you wanna come round?" and I will say "No not really" and then he will say "Are you sure, oh and also, would you mind maybe driving into Lisbon first and you probably know someone who sells weed and you could buy it and bring it round to mine" - so, in actual fact, ninety percent of his interactions are with delivery people and suchlike, but unfortunately for him he does have to put up with a few people such as me whose interaction with him is not transactional and delivery based, but actually cos i have to pretend to like him cos he is from Chelyabinsk.... and his response to that situation is to seek to turn me into a delivery driver.