6 ms·

A couple of stand-out memories from the olden days (and I don't consider myself particularly old): Getting a call in a restaurant. Only happened to me once but

A couple of stand-out memories from the olden days (and I don't consider myself particularly old): Getting a call in a restaurant. Only happened to me once but I certainly felt like a VIP. Carrying a tiny map book of London around with me while cycling around. Missing turn after turn until finding there was a canal which basically took me from the center to my uncle's house. Arranging to meet a friend and then being late. Really late. 1 hour late. He was still there, waiting for me.

xwolfi 5y ago
Yeah I remember waiting for people - I got a smartphone at 16, in 2004, something like that, so it's hard to really imagine how it was for adults... My parents told me they spend evenings at the phone booth talking to each other - but even that is ultra convenient compared to my grandparents sending letters :D But I think it's better anyway - we sample mating candidates more, we cycle through faster, we can stop and try anew nearly any time until 50, and with some difficulty above. I mean my aunt had a crushing divorce when she had 3 young children and stayed alone working with all 3 until the internet arrived and she could find a partner much faster...
- noisy_boy 5y ago
  > My parents told me they spend evenings at the phone booth talking to each other - but even that is ultra convenient compared to my grandparents sending letters :D No need to get to the grandparents' generation, I was the letter writer of my family :) I wrote letters to uncles/aunts/grandpa - mostly at the command of my mum or grandma and sometimes for myself. I remember rushing to the window when the postman yelled and dropped letters through the grill - sometimes there would be more than one! The excitement was palpable - now we sigh with annoyance at the barrage of nonsense and spam that flows into our inbox. Truly a case of quantity over quality.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    I remember feeling that way when I got an email back in the day, because it was a pretty rare event. These days, I feel like that when I get a physical letter that isn't sent by a machine.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >But I think it's better anyway - we sample mating candidates more, we cycle through faster, we can stop and try anew nearly any time until 50, and with some difficulty above. On the other side, we self report more isolated, depressed, friendless and dissatisfied than ever in the past decades, have record levels of depression prescriptions and opioids, and people get discovered dead after a month or so when somebody complains about the smell...
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    How reliable are self reported results across years or even generations of confounding changes?
    - coldtea 5y ago
      Combined with empirical observation, what we've used to call "having a look for yourself", they're quite potent. That said it's not like hard numbers like prescriptions and case stats haven't got up, including numbers of people living alone, etc.
  - Broken_Hippo 5y ago
    Before opiods, we had cocaine, valium, morphine, and so on... We just didn't keep so many records back then, especially during the times they were legal. With Valium, folks got it from their doctor. Did we track depression before like we do now? Were folks comfortable talking about it or would they lie when they self report? I'm pretty sure that in the past, folks got discovered dead because of the smell.
  - Werewolf255 5y ago
    Is it worse or are we just getting better data on it? It seems just as likely that these states simply went unreported due to having nobody who was interested in listening. Might be that the quiet desperation has always been there, but now it gets voiced to a receptive audience.
varjag 5y ago
I (legally) smoked on a plane!
- dilap 5y ago
  smoking on a plane sounds like simultaneously the most wonderful and most terrible thing ever similarly it was amazing to smoke in bars, but it's great to not have smoke filled bars
  - varjag 5y ago
    I mean it does sound crazy to me now. But back then it was just a fact of life that both smokers and non-smokers didn't spend much thought on. I flew before I picked up smoking myself, and it didn't really feel something unusual, precisely because it was common everywhere. There have to be other daily habits now that going to be seen as disgusting in a few decades too. Maybe things like eating non-cloned meat.
    - don-code 5y ago
      Common in restaurants as well. It's downright bizarre to think about now, but I remember as a child, at family restaurants like Friendly's and Howard Johnson's (which itself is an anachronism), being asked by a cheery-faced hostess whether we wanted "smoking or non-smoking".
    - conductr 5y ago
      It was interesting especially juxtaposed on current reality. I hated smoking (ok I hated 2nd hand smoke as a non-smoker). But somehow, it was the right of the individual to smoke; when, where, and how they pleased. It didn't matter that other people in the space shared the air. Compared to present when the world is looking to bend over backwards to avoid putting smoke in someone else's air on a plethora of different topics. Many, that I've never contemplated. Like, for instance, I never thought I could get yelled at for using what I thought to be the correct pronoun while saying "yes sir, thank you". I'd think they'd just recognize my attempt canned politeness and say "you're welcome" and recognize why people think of them as a "sir" during casual brief interactions (because they were wearing men's clothes & had facial hair).
paxys 5y ago
Smartphones or not, being very late for planned meetups definitely hasn't changed as a concept.
- distances 5y ago
  Nobody waits for an hour though. With no contact I think I'd leave in about 20 minutes now.
downut 5y ago
In 1989 I wrote a letter (i.e., mailed) to a friend from grad school (ASU) pursuing her studies at a Northern UK university. I sez we will meet you at the center of Piccadilly Circus at such and such a time, on such and such date. She wrote back, "of course." This took a month or so. We flew over, and showed up. So did she. I still remember meeting up: it was no big deal. We had also written to Czech friends from grad school (U FL) that we would show up in Olomouc on such and such date (Jun 1989, interesting times). They were visiting relatives and we showed up. And were whisked off to 5 days of whirlwind touring the soon to be de-Sovietized Czechoslovakia. We hosted quite few Eastern Europeans in the '90s, all arranged over snail mail. There was a sense of responsibility that we don't really experience today when dropping in on travels. All the modernity in the world, and nowadays we occasionally get ghosted, even after making repeated prior arrangements using the latest hottest smart phone technology. I will say this: google translate + maps are the two great inventions we appreciate most. The rest is a solid meh. We have a theory that maximized immediate convenience has an unanticipated effect of atomizing and devaluing some relationships. Per the parent, I too remember those paper maps while cycling. As in, riding from the Portland Airport to Arcadia and down to LA, using a tour guide, quite tattered at the end. Most of the times before an extended trip (100+ miles) I would memorize the route the night before. This worked fine for 25 years.

xwolfi 5y ago

Yeah I remember waiting for people - I got a smartphone at 16, in 2004, something like that, so it's hard to really imagine how it was for adults... My parents told me they spend evenings at the phone booth talking to each other - but even that is ultra convenient compared to my grandparents sending letters :D But I think it's better anyway - we sample mating candidates more, we cycle through faster, we can stop and try anew nearly any time until 50, and with some difficulty above. I mean my aunt had a crushing divorce when she had 3 young children and stayed alone working with all 3 until the internet arrived and she could find a partner much faster...

noisy_boy 5y ago
> My parents told me they spend evenings at the phone booth talking to each other - but even that is ultra convenient compared to my grandparents sending letters :D No need to get to the grandparents' generation, I was the letter writer of my family :) I wrote letters to uncles/aunts/grandpa - mostly at the command of my mum or grandma and sometimes for myself. I remember rushing to the window when the postman yelled and dropped letters through the grill - sometimes there would be more than one! The excitement was palpable - now we sigh with annoyance at the barrage of nonsense and spam that flows into our inbox. Truly a case of quantity over quality.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  I remember feeling that way when I got an email back in the day, because it was a pretty rare event. These days, I feel like that when I get a physical letter that isn't sent by a machine.
coldtea 5y ago
>But I think it's better anyway - we sample mating candidates more, we cycle through faster, we can stop and try anew nearly any time until 50, and with some difficulty above. On the other side, we self report more isolated, depressed, friendless and dissatisfied than ever in the past decades, have record levels of depression prescriptions and opioids, and people get discovered dead after a month or so when somebody complains about the smell...
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  How reliable are self reported results across years or even generations of confounding changes?
  - coldtea 5y ago
    Combined with empirical observation, what we've used to call "having a look for yourself", they're quite potent. That said it's not like hard numbers like prescriptions and case stats haven't got up, including numbers of people living alone, etc.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  Before opiods, we had cocaine, valium, morphine, and so on... We just didn't keep so many records back then, especially during the times they were legal. With Valium, folks got it from their doctor. Did we track depression before like we do now? Were folks comfortable talking about it or would they lie when they self report? I'm pretty sure that in the past, folks got discovered dead because of the smell.
- Werewolf255 5y ago
  Is it worse or are we just getting better data on it? It seems just as likely that these states simply went unreported due to having nobody who was interested in listening. Might be that the quiet desperation has always been there, but now it gets voiced to a receptive audience.

varjag 5y ago

I (legally) smoked on a plane!

dilap 5y ago
smoking on a plane sounds like simultaneously the most wonderful and most terrible thing ever similarly it was amazing to smoke in bars, but it's great to not have smoke filled bars
- varjag 5y ago
  I mean it does sound crazy to me now. But back then it was just a fact of life that both smokers and non-smokers didn't spend much thought on. I flew before I picked up smoking myself, and it didn't really feel something unusual, precisely because it was common everywhere. There have to be other daily habits now that going to be seen as disgusting in a few decades too. Maybe things like eating non-cloned meat.
  - don-code 5y ago
    Common in restaurants as well. It's downright bizarre to think about now, but I remember as a child, at family restaurants like Friendly's and Howard Johnson's (which itself is an anachronism), being asked by a cheery-faced hostess whether we wanted "smoking or non-smoking".
  - conductr 5y ago
    It was interesting especially juxtaposed on current reality. I hated smoking (ok I hated 2nd hand smoke as a non-smoker). But somehow, it was the right of the individual to smoke; when, where, and how they pleased. It didn't matter that other people in the space shared the air. Compared to present when the world is looking to bend over backwards to avoid putting smoke in someone else's air on a plethora of different topics. Many, that I've never contemplated. Like, for instance, I never thought I could get yelled at for using what I thought to be the correct pronoun while saying "yes sir, thank you". I'd think they'd just recognize my attempt canned politeness and say "you're welcome" and recognize why people think of them as a "sir" during casual brief interactions (because they were wearing men's clothes & had facial hair).

paxys 5y ago

Smartphones or not, being very late for planned meetups definitely hasn't changed as a concept.

distances 5y ago
Nobody waits for an hour though. With no contact I think I'd leave in about 20 minutes now.

downut 5y ago

In 1989 I wrote a letter (i.e., mailed) to a friend from grad school (ASU) pursuing her studies at a Northern UK university. I sez we will meet you at the center of Piccadilly Circus at such and such a time, on such and such date. She wrote back, "of course." This took a month or so. We flew over, and showed up. So did she. I still remember meeting up: it was no big deal. We had also written to Czech friends from grad school (U FL) that we would show up in Olomouc on such and such date (Jun 1989, interesting times). They were visiting relatives and we showed up. And were whisked off to 5 days of whirlwind touring the soon to be de-Sovietized Czechoslovakia. We hosted quite few Eastern Europeans in the '90s, all arranged over snail mail. There was a sense of responsibility that we don't really experience today when dropping in on travels. All the modernity in the world, and nowadays we occasionally get ghosted, even after making repeated prior arrangements using the latest hottest smart phone technology. I will say this: google translate + maps are the two great inventions we appreciate most. The rest is a solid meh. We have a theory that maximized immediate convenience has an unanticipated effect of atomizing and devaluing some relationships. Per the parent, I too remember those paper maps while cycling. As in, riding from the Portland Airport to Arcadia and down to LA, using a tour guide, quite tattered at the end. Most of the times before an extended trip (100+ miles) I would memorize the route the night before. This worked fine for 25 years.