One Man's Treasure

To the week that was...

A couple of weeks ago I felt it would be a good idea to try selling some unwanted items at a car boot sale for the first time. Lo and behold, on Sunday morning I found myself unpacking a car full of trinkets at 6am in Cambridge (only the woman who star hops could make me do that!)

With a beautiful blue sky and an urn full of tasty warming herbal tea, it was a great experience to see how the value of "stuff" changes drastically depending on who is looking at it - for some it is about how a novelty jumper may make them feel, or the time they can spend with family watching a DVD box set, or the memories they will have listening to a funk CD.

I was also very honoured to present a workshop at the Noire Wellness Fibroid Series and be on the panel discussion with a formidable line-up of women. The guests were also engaged and so open to everything the presenters were offering, it made it a very uplifting and thought-provoking event, with scope for a great many things to come. Also I was very impressed with Candice Bryan (founder of Noire Wellness) who did an incredible job of organising the event and looked as cool as a sexy cucumber throughout the afternoon.

I rounded off the week at Got Soul in Moorgate (yes, I am still supposed to be revising) welcoming a beautiful soul back to London. It was a chilled evening with great music and beau-hootiful people but I kept getting the feeling that something had changed and couldn't place where this feeling was coming from. I definitely haven't been out-out (bars/clubs) as much as I used to but I got the feeling that social interactions, particularly with strangers, has changed. There seemed to be a hesitation, possibly even a fear for people to interact with people they didn't know, not just for flirty banter but friendly banter with men and women alike - or maybe I just have an unapproachable face...

I remember reading somewhere recently that because we are so used to interacting on social media, people sometimes struggle to interact with others in real life, and I passed off the theory as digital detritus. But I may have been too quick to overlook the theory. Building face-to-face relationships takes effort, time and patience. Sending texts, DMs, WhatsAppp messages or emails is often a far quicker and efficient way to converse (I am certainly guilty of this). These methods also allow us to take the time to prepare what we want to say and if we are shy or lacking confidence our "screen-time" enables us to be the person we would like to be. We are not afforded this luxury when we are in face-to-face social settings and the sirens in our minds ring out, "Be funny now!"

I am also very aware (and grateful) that when I was going out a lot, social media wasn't as prolific as it is now. If you did something stupid, it was just you and your friends who would know about it - which was bad enough. Now within minutes images of your face could be plastered half way around the world. With all of that to consider, it's no wonder we don't want to talk to each other!

And once again, I have found something else to distract me from revising.