Simply asocial

By the way,remind me never to eat junk food in bed again.I woke up feeling like someone had poured acid into my eye.After drowning my eye in cold water repeatedly,it turned out that there was an ant in my eye.And the acid-like feeling was because of the formic acid.My right eye is still in a sorry state.
Note to all people,please do not eat junk food in bed.Unless you want to go through what I just did:P

A suitable starting point for this article would be to first contrast asocial and anti-social.I do this at the risk of sounding condescending,yet that seems a reasonable compromise to make lest my reader mistake the former for the latter.I quote,

Asocial and antisocial are often used interchangeably in colloquial speech, but they are not the same thing; asocial means "avoidant of society" while antisocial means "hostile toward society".

Remember in the early 2000s when the word automation was starting to make its rounds in conversational circles? Automation was rather loosely used for what's now known in technical parlance as artificial intelligence and machine learning.Back then,people looked at this word as the harbinger of all future doom.

Every single adult would have mentioned this scenario to you as if they were talking about a post apocalyptic universe:Think of a world dominated by artificial intelligence.There will be robots in shops,restaurants,banks and every other place conceivable.Can you imagine living like that?Apparently,this is going to be our reality in about two decades.These robots will not only take away our jobs but also eliminate contact with our own species.This would be the cue for the audience to shudder in horror at the very thought of this and pessimistically lament about what the world was coming to!

Except you know what? It never evoked in me the horror it was expected to evoke.On the contrary,it sounded like a pleasant future.Young as I was,I still knew with surprising clarity that this was something I liked and welcomed.For I disliked contact with society to a great extent.My parents first attributed it to shyness.I was later on labelled an introvert.Yet,I think asocial comes the closest to describing what I feel.Back then,my dreams of utopian tomorrow would always involve this:A world where human contact is minimal and machines take over for the most part!

I hated the mundanity of something as simple as going to a shop to buy something and consequentially having to make small talk with the shopkeeper.I hated shopping because it would involve extensive time spent with a salesperson in tow talking nineteen to the dozen while I tried to pick out clothes.I heaved a sigh of release as supermarkets slowly crept in and replaced grocery shops.Ditto for when malls emerged and you could go about your business in peace.

The icing on the cake was and is online shopping.I loved the idea and have rarely bought anything off the net since then:P Sometimes,I even hate running into the delivery guy.I know this is going to sound horribly ridiculous to every single one of my readers:D I plan and order things in such a way that I'm not home when it arrives and can hence eliminate even that small bit of human contact:P

I'm glad for these tiny graces for they make my life easier.Yet,I'm greedy because I want so much more.

My mom asked me to accompany her to the bank this afternoon because she was appalled(rightly?) at my ignorance that results from almost never having been to a bank physically.I prefer all my banking to be online.Luckily for me,my bankers are very progressive and I can get almost everything done online.Even when the rest of India was standing in queues trying to have their aadhar number linked with their bank accounts,my bank had a provision for doing it online.I don't even have a passbook so not even the hassle of getting the entries printed exists for me.I love living in this virtual bubble of comfort where anything and everything involves merely interacting with my laptop.

Hence,I cringed at the very thought of having to actually go to a bank.I steeled my nerves and went.The sheer number of people was enough to intimidate me.Added to that is the fact that most of the staff tend to be really really surly.Talk about abuse of power.More than politicians,I somehow suspect that these tiny people in their unassuming positions wield a lot of power over us normal mortals.You might be a big shot at work--but you have to bow your head and plead to this one clerk or your FD will never see the light of day for at least a week:P You can see hordes of people waiting for hours on end with a defeated expression.I never want to go through this ordeal.This is the place where I shudder in horror.

I head over to the passbook printing kiosk thanking my stars that at least this is automated.The program hangs and I immediately know what to do.I roll my eyes at the stupidity of using an OS(and Windows at that) when there's just one program to run.Yet,this is something I can easily handle--contrary to the rude clerk at the desk.

 I ask you now,imagine a world where there are no people behind counters.Just beautiful terminals to carry out all your requests.Efficient.Competent.Friendly.They're never going to yell at you or treat you like a worm:P You're never going to have to inquire about their health or kids and then store all that information so that they treat you well next time.You're never going to having to pretend to be a sickeningly sweet person just to get your work done.Tell me now,is AI as bad as they make it sound? To me, it sounds just perfect:D I hope I live to see the day of my dreams.

Yes,I'm aware that most people probably love small talk and hate me for saying all that I just did.You're entitled to your opinion and so am I:) In fact,I would love to hear from a social person as to what such encounters feel like. I've always wondered what it's like to be on the other side.Kindly enlighten me if you have the time and patience!