my name is not matt

This one is, seem­ingly, pretty straight­for­ward. 


I tried to think back to see if there was a shift. The more I thought about it, it was clear that I have never been much of a phone per­son. As much as I love a good con­ver­sa­tion, I don’t par­tic­u­larly like talk­ing on the phone. The con­se­quence of this feel­ing is that I don’t talk to my fam­ily and friends as much as I think about them. The upside of e-mail is that it’s really easy to drop a line or tome to fam­ily and friends–especially since I enjoy writ­ing. The con­se­quence is that I’ve become lazy and don’t really call or visit that much.


I said seem­ingly straight­for­ward, because it’s impor­tant for me out whether the desire to add this was dri­ven by want or guilt. I don’t find guilt a pow­er­ful moti­va­tor. It was is impor­tant to me that my out­reach to peo­ple, be they fam­ily or friends, be gen­uine. 


I can­not really limit this goal to just pick­ing up the phone. There are friends in the area (most of my fam­ily lives some dis­tance from DC) that I don’t see that much. We might share thoughts by email, or on Face­book or Twit­ter, but months and months can go by between actu­ally see­ing each other. Though I’m not a huge “hangin’ out” kind of per­son, I could do bet­ter about get­ting out. Carla and I recently took her mother out to a jazz spot (HR 57), and I really enjoyed being out.  I don’t quite know when I became such a her­mit, but I would like to get much bet­ter about offer­ing sug­ges­tions for hang­ing out more with friends, or accept­ing the invi­ta­tions when they come.


For me, the key, as with any other goal, is to not attempt to build Rome in a day. So often, we set goals and try to go 0-to-60 faster than a Porsche. I would rather go slow, exam­ine why I am occa­sion­ally a recluse, and find a com­fort­able, nat­ural growth of my time spent with friends and stay­ing in touch with my fam­ily.


I’ll set aside my inter­est in the lost art of let­ter writ­ing for the time being.


What is your style. Are you good about secur­ing face time with peo­ple, or do you engage peo­ple mostly by e-mail, IMs or social media?