THE INTROVERT'S UTOPIA

"I feel like I'd like to disappear today, to kind of pop out of reality like a soap bubble," I texted my friend, "I'd pop back of course, after an hour or two, or maybe a day or two..."

I rather like this thought. It's the introvert's utopia I suppose - not necessarily being away from everyone for your own sake, but more to just restore a bit of balance to the universe by not being around inside it.

Now that we live in a more digital age of course, everybody is everywhere. You log into flappybook - everyone is there, milling around, updating their status, showing you their dinner plates or their children, or commenting on how terrible the government is. Swipe open Twitter on your smartphone - oh there's everyone again look, but celebrities as well this time, tweeting pithy reactions to TV programs, sports teams and how terrible the government is.

I like the constant stream of chatter sometimes, but then there are other times when I'd quite like the old-fashioned silence back. And the bit of my brain that says I can choose to be part of the solution rather than the problem, tells me to leave social media unopened, to keep my new phone in my pocket and to stop blogging about it. Hmmm.

What then, another chunk of radio silence? Perhaps. It does seem a bit... well, self-indulgent. Do you remember when mobile phones were taking off and people who weren't really used to them kept them switched off except for emergencies? They seem like lovely days now. Those people's friends and family, enamoured with the idea of being able to contact anybody anytime, and mystified by anyone who didn't want that, used to say things like:

"What is the point in having a phone if you're going to keep it switched off, where I can't reach you?"

At some stage, it became expected that we're ubiquitously connected - the internet merged itself with the smartphone; buzzing bricks became tiny computers and consequently, it became socially reprehensible not to be available. If you take longer than two days to answer a personal email, for example, it's quite likely that the sender will feel that awkward knot of rejection tangling up on the inside. How very dare you be so rude; get plugged back into the Matrix at once, you old hermit.

It did occur to me half-way through the year, that abandoning fleecebook without really telling anyone, might cause a few people to be upset with me. If that's you, I can only apologise - though the very thing I'm talking about here is the fact that I don't think I should have to. I am sorry nonetheless. And anyway, how did we all get chained up to a website?

The introvert's utopia though, goes much deeper than just the digital adventure playground. Today I almost feel like I want to actually be somewhere else, to vanish in a puff of smoke like an old-fashioned magician - well, actually, forget the smoke; I'm not sure I really want anyone to notice. Perhaps it's more like slipping away at a party where everyone seems engaged in superficial conversation. Nobody will see, I think to myself, nobody will care.

They will though. They very much will. Plus, first in the queue would be my manager, and I don't really want to get on the wrong side of him by going AWOL. Second would be my Mum and if anything, she is much more formidable.

Where am I going with all this? Well that's the point, I guess. I'm going nowhere. There's no introvert's utopia to disapparate off to, no wardrobe and no Narnia. We have to make the most of the time we have here, bumbling along with the extroverts while they whoop and holler at the party.

And in a strange way, I think there might come a time when they really need us to stick around.