Modern Technology and sleeping naked with German Film Directors…..

While chatting via text with a dear pal in Connecticut recently I was struck by the advances in technology that allow us to communicate instantly by typing words into a little piece of plastic. Our words and actions are captured and transmitted in the blink of an eye, and people in deepest darkest Peru ( as in the case of another friend recently) can stay in touch with family and friends, and carry on conversations via text- email- Skype and Facebook.

We are currently living in a global village where so many people are connected through various technologies, and sometimes my conversations on particular topics with friends or family can go on over several days using different technological platforms.

I can take photos and share them instantly. I can upload videos and do the same. The advances in social networking can mean that we never have to feel alone, although physically we may be.

While all this communication can be viewed as a good thing, there are those who lament the passing of letter writing and telephone conversations that used to go on for hours. People of my age and older remember queuing up outside public telephone boxes waiting for their turn to call home at the weekend before the advent of personal mobile phones. I personally remember the need to have lots of coin change for the operator when making long distance calls on public phones or the dreaded ‘pips’ would sound the untimely end of the conversation if the money ran out.

Telephone conversations between families back in the day were usually restricted if the family members were scattered across the globe, and I clearly remember a time growing up when all families in my neighbourhood did not have a telephone. One lucky neighbour had a public phone box outside her house and random passers-by would regularly answer the ringing phone and be instructed by the caller to ‘knock on number 98 and get Margaret for me please’.

Personally I still like to write and although I rarely go out and buy a stamp to put on an envelope, I do write emails in the same way that I used to write letters. I try to keep them informative and newsy and I think about the person reading them and what they will think upon receiving news about particular things or people. I stay in touch online with friends and family, and although I may text them regularly I also like to sit down and write emails to keep them informed about stuff that I may not text them about. It’s good to fill in the colours of an outline that I may have hinted about in a text message.

Living in this modern technological world we are more aware of how possible indiscretions can land us in trouble. Photos captured when you were not looking your best at 3am are cheerfully uploaded by ‘friends’ so that everyone can see how you had a wardrobe malfunction, or worse still, dribbling kebab sauce all over that beautiful top that you paid a fortune for the day before.

The list of shared horrors can go global in seconds…

Recalling an incident a few years ago I was invited to my cousin’s house in County Wicklow with my husband for a dinner party and an overnight stay. We regularly entertained and were on the ‘Dinner Party’ circuit with my cousin and his wife. He is a professional composer and musician, and all his parties ended with sing songs around the piano where he would belt out tunes and I would sing our grandmothers and mothers favourite songs. His mam and my mam are dear sisters.

This particular night my hubby and I arrived late. We dumped our overnight bag in the hall and charged down to meet the other guests who had gathered in the bar. Yes- our hosts did have a full bar in that particular house complete with high stools, optics and neon signs. It was a very cool party house.

I was introduced to a German Film Director (who shall remain nameless) and over a couple of pre-dinner drinks we discussed film, world politics (as you do) and other subjects. We got cosy on the high stools and when we were eventually called out of the bar into the dining room for dinner we sat beside each other in order to finish off our conversation.

As the night progressed and the wine flowed, the chat was divided equally amongst the other guests present. I was engaging, chatty and in fine form for the singing that eventually took place with my cousin at the piano. I was wearing a long black high necked cocktail dress on the night and at some stage my underwire bra began to pinch! I remember sneaking out to the hall (where my overnight bag was still residing) pulling the bra off and stuffing it into the bag and resuming my place at the piano where no one was any the wiser as to my bra less state.

At about 3am the guests began to depart and my husband also said good night to me, leaving my cousin and I still singing at the piano. The German Film Director had long left the company although he was also staying overnight.

My cousin and I were the last ones standing, his wife having also taken leave of us, abandoning us to our demented sentimental singing.

We continued chatting, singing and drinking until I noticed dawn creeping around the window frames, and having said good night/morning I stumbled my way upstairs to my room. As I entered the bedroom, daylight was filtering in through the curtains. I glanced around for my overnight bag and not seeing it, decided that it was just easier to peel my dress up over my head and sleep in my knickers.

I crawled into the familiar uncomfortable rigid futon and snuggled up against my husband’s back and wrapped my arm around him to get some heat. I murmured something about the fecking futon being ‘so damned hard’…. and that’s the last thing I remember before waking up alone with sunshine flooding the room at about 1pm the following day.

Looking around for my overnight bag and not finding it, I pulled on the dress from the night before and made my way down stairs to the lovely and welcome smell of breakfast. I entered the kitchen to greet my husband, my cousin, his wife and the German Film Director who were all sitting at the table. The stony silence matched their stony faces.

Grinning I took my place and asked why everyone was so quiet…. The German Film Director spoke first. “Leaving the party was tough” he said “but I knew I had to be up to travel to the airport. What I didn’t expect was a naked woman to creep into my bed, snuggle up to me, rub her breasts against my back, mutter something about it being hard and then to turn over and start snoring”.

Sitting there I remembered thinking “this conversation is strangely familiar”…… The four stern faces around the table confirmed that YES… I had gotten into the wrong bed!

In my defense!

My cousin had told my husband when we arrived LATE that we had been allocated another bedroom that night but neither of them had told me. I just followed a familiar worn path to the same room that we had previously occupied.

When the gracious German Film Director was accosted in his bed by a semi naked inebriated house guest who believed that the bed was HERS, he did the gentlemanly thing and vacated it immediately and spent the rest of the night on the downstairs sofa. (Or so he said)!

When my husband woke up and found me missing from his/our bed in the allocated alternative guest room he did a search for me and found me asleep on the familiar futon alone at about 9am. He also found the German Film Director asleep on the downstairs sofa.

Gathering early that morning, my husband, my cousin, his wife and the German Film Director pieced together the entire previous night’s scenario before I had raised my head, and collectively they decided to make me suffer AND THEY DID!

I remember sitting there thinking that had I fancied the German Film Director for an instant (and I didn’t) I could never have pulled off a stunt like this even if I wanted to.

We all departed the best of friends at about 4pm that day. The German Film Director drove to the airport to go home, my hubby and I went home to Dublin, and my cousin and his wife spent the remainder of the day clearing the detritus from the night before.

I was only home and in the door about 15 minutes when the texts and phone calls started. My escapades had reached the four corners of the globe and my mother was the first person on the phone. “Were you naked in bed with a Foreign Film Director while your husband was asleep in another room” she asked.

News like this in the 70’s & 80’s would have taken months via letter writing and queuing outside public phone boxes on windy nights to relay. It would have gathered legs, and reputations could/would be ruined before the real truth was revealed.

Conversation and information that travels via text messaging and social media is so instant and has the power to influence how we think and react. My innocent late night escapades reached my extended family and friends across the globe within hours and I spent the next few days explaining and justifying how I came to be naked in a bed with a complete stranger.

Thankfully the situation didn’t ‘damage’ my reputation although my many far flung family members and friends had a good laugh about it.

Damn it! Had it been a clandestine one night affair dya think I would/could have explained it so easily?

I don’t think so.

Destiny maybe the subconscious devil in us all…..