2004-07-27

You meet all kinds of people if you sit outside in the evening with a laptop in Oslo.

Tonight a short Swede who'd spent several years playing football as a high school student in the US stopped by to remark at my use of technology while sitting outside on the bus-stop bench.

He supposed I was chatting with friends across the ocean, in America. Actually, I told him, the guy I'm chatting with is right there, and I pointed at the third-floor window of the gray-green building behind me. He asked why I was sitting out here. Had we quarreled? Were we not on speaking terms? No, I replied, he's going to bed right now, and I live just around the corner anyway. Which was true enough, though it wasn't the real reason I wasn't inside.

I'm frequently sitting on the curb outside near his flat, trying to catch wireless (since our flat doesn't have even a telephone), rather than sitting in his sitting room and using the net access there. Granted, it's usually late at night, but even if it wasn't and even if the doorbell to his flat wasn't broken, I wouldn't dare drop by for a visit. Not very often, not without an excuse, and even then not for very long.
Why visit someone if they don't want you around?

People fear what they do not understand.