Text me on how you feel about this.

Gimme a reason. What's in your brain?

- Umphrey's McGee "Andy's Last Beer"

I don't know what people are thinking no more than I know what bears or ducks are thinking. They're thinking something, for sure, but what - I do not know.

Like waiting around for the telephone to ring (or whatever it is that phones do now) is horrifying. The people we're waiting on don't know the anguish they are putting us through. All they know is what's in their brain - which isn't close to what's in ours. That's the worst. The call wait. It's agonizing.

But it makes a nice haiku:

give me a reason.

i don't know what you're thinking.

what is in your brain?

OK. That's out of my system. People tell me I'm "a catch." I think it's like those little sunfish we used to catch out of the lake back home. Small enough to throw back but not nice enough to keep or care about.

Part of our Internet-based throwaway society is that we can pick and choose with whom we socialize. We can "ignore" friend requests and respond to those whom we deem necessary to respond. It isn't like the old days when we had to pick up a telephone and actually speak to someone. Now, we can break someone's heart via text message or ... worse yet ... via non response. We can say it's been "crazy" and I "haven't had time for myself." Meanwhile the poor sap on the other end is waiting for some reply to his heartfelt request. It's a symptom of the 21st century. The "Me Century" where what me wants me gets. You see it all over.

People wander about with their Bluetooth headsets in one ear and their attention in the other. They aren't thinking about you and your little world. Their little world.

We are all cocooned in our Internet-based worlds, and that's swell, until we actually have to interact with someone on the outside (like our parents did) and (God forbid) speak to them. Text messages, Facebook, Tweets -- whatever -- as long as we don't have to actually speak to someone. I can't take that kind of pressure.

I think that's why "social networking" sites like Facebook and Twitter are so popular. We don't have to actually confront anyone. We can reject them via text message.

And isn't that better -- for you?