Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Chat Client

I have written about my laziness and also about my room-mates most whom shared that trait of laziness. Usually I was lazier than my room mates and I used to pass on my laziness to them. However I guess every one eventually meets a match and so I met mine. So when I met the subject of this post, I figured he was not just a match but a clear winner when it came to laziness.

I had known this person a bit, before we became room mates, as somebody who loved trekking and had a good physique (which I assumed was a result of work out). Naturally I assumed that he should be an active person. However within a week of living with him, I realised that he was quite opposite of what he seemed to be at the first go.

I am a lazy cook but when forced to cook, I know some survival tips (Read more here). However I was not expecting those to be put to test the way this guy did. First I learnt that he was a worse cook than me. Then I figured he knew all about surviving without cooking (Read more here). I hadn't written the survival guide then, but I guess most lazy people are smart enough to figure it out soon. Soon I had to divide work so as to get him to do some cooking as well. However I think my stay with this guy managed to teach me enough to write the survival guide "Cook Like a Bachelor"

If the laziness about cooking was not enough, I soon learnt that he was also as unhygienic as me. So like many lazy bachelors he too had a lot of energy saving traits
- avoiding bath on weekends
- Reusing his socks until they smelt foul enough to have no choice but to wash them
- creating a mess of paper, clothes etc around his room
....
the list of goes on
I share a lot of these traits too, but this guy almost managed to make me feel ashamed of these traits by outdoing me in those.

However given the common traits and love of laziness, we managed to get along well, be good friends and there were almost no arguments as our views matched a lot about how things at home should be. Thanks to laziness for that.

What ever has been said so far should probably be good enough to earn him the adjective of "Sloth", however there was one thing that took away that honour from him. He was almost obsessed with chatting on the internet.

The chatting obsession was so much that one could almost view him as if some object dedicated to chatting. Hence the name chat client - after the genre of softwares like yahoo messenger - something he used a lot. Thus I could see him chat in the morning till the point we started off for work. I could see him glued to his PC when I came back from work. Even when we were cooking food, there he was placing his laptop on the kitchen platform, right beside the cutting board. Even when he was cooking all by himself , I could see him multitasking.

He was a little more sensitive than most guys I have known, which I think allowed him to be some one who could talk a lot with females and listen with empathy. Naturally he had a lot of female friends. So even though we were in US, he still managed to stay in touch with some of those friends back home in India. The time difference between the two countries meant that he had to stay up late nights to be able to chat with his female friends (or should I say girl friends). Thus I would sometimes wake up in the middle of night only to see a faint glow from the laptop screen. Guess what .... there he was chatting away with some one or other.

His chatting habits were so extreme that they were almost good enough to term him as eccentric. The peak of his eccentricity was when he presented to me a whole new way of multitasking while spending time on the "great seat of thought" (also referred by some people as Potty). It say happened that one fine day I woke up to note that my room mate was missing and so was his laptop. After looking around the flat I figured that he must be in the toilet/bathroom. After half an hour he emerged from the place much refreshed and with the laptop in his hand. And no he was not refreshed from a bath. On questioning him he said that thanks to the availability of wireless internet, he had just discovered that he could stay online and chat even when on the potty. Soon enough it became a habit for him. This habit so contagious too. Thus even I ended up carrying the laptop with me to the potty a few times. I have to agree it is indeed a useful diversion when on the seat of thought.

After I moved to India I have not been in close contact with him. We do meet up sometimes when he in town, but I guess he has now given up his chatting habits. I rarely see him online now. Also came to know recently that he got married. Naturally I think there are more avenues for him to spend his time than chatting with girl friends (or should I say ex-girl friends). However the one thing I'll continue to remember about him is his eccentric chatting habits.