Differences.

I’ve spent 3½-4 hours today trying to get my new mobile phone working and set up to my requirements. Well, it’s working, but only up to a point. I’m still utterly bemused – and therefore stressed – because certain facilities refuse to play ball. And none of this is really surprising because I’m not a gadget person. I relate perfectly well to trees, birds, animals, existential musing, and mysterious things which have no rational reason to be there but are anyway, but gadgets are not my thing.

(I’m a good people person, but only when it comes to that rarefied 1% of the population whose presence in my orbit I can tolerate for more than ten minutes. I soon become intolerant (and a little bemused) with the rest.)

My ex, Mel, is quite good with gadgets (and I can tolerate her for more than ten minutes, incidentally.) The main difference between her and me comes with the matter of memory. (And I’m not talking computers here; I’m talking the human capacity to retain knowledge.) Mel is the sort who can remember the names and characteristics of every character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer three years after she’s watched the last episode. I’ve forgotten most of them within three weeks.

My faculty of memory resides in a different sphere. I came across references to ‘the taiga’ twice recently and realised that I didn’t know what it was, so I did a bit of research. Now I know where it is and what its natural characteristics are, and the knowledge is firmly fixed for the duration. When I mentioned this to Mel she admitted that she would be a little bemused (there’s that word again) by it all, and even those bits she did understand would be forgotten in about the same length of time it takes me to forget the characters in Buffy.

Vive la différence, eh? Yes indeed.