Delaying tactics

Why can’t anyone agree to the smallest thing any more without asking you to put it in an email? I rang a friend and asked him to have lunch with me this week and he said, ‘Can you put that in an email?’ Well, I told him, I suppose I could put it in an email but the email would only say, ‘Will you have lunch with me?’ Yeah, he said, that will do.

Turns out he was suffering from aide- memoire syndrome, the need to see something in writing. The urge had apparently overwhelmed him to the point where it had become impossible to enter into any form of human encounter without an exchange of letters agreeing the terms of engagement beforehand.

The tendency has coincided with a rise in ridiculous conversations where someone you bump into or telephone greets you with the words: ‘I’ve just emailed you.’ When you ask what it says they insist you read the email, which inevitably invites you to lunch.