Me? Smug? Never!

Golly, neat! My real-world friend mentioned a web tool yesterday that I’d heard about in the blogosphere just that morning, and that she’s actually used it (Charity Navigator). So what, you say? Well, it’s not that this tool is any more spectacular than so many others (I like Charity Checks myself). Millions of cool sites come online every day. It’s not that my blogs are so up-to-the-minute; of course they are! I am a brilliant, discerning reader, you know.

The interchange thrilled me, as these kinds of moments always do, because 1) this woman’s slowly, inexorably being won over to the dark side — she’s getting geekier every day in spite of her claims to be a technophobe; 2) so few (um, none) of my real-world friends are geeks. Just one instant or instance of tech-understanding means we’ve bonded on heretofore unmarked ground; and 3) real people in my real world are starting to find that real tools in the web world can be really be fun and useful.

Surprise! Then they act as if they found these tools and ideas completely on their own, without any influence or associations with the likes of me. I don’t care; it gives a girl some renewed hope and faith that there is, yes, a Higher Power. It’s especially gratifying when the new and reluctant convert is a luddite or an educator who has privately deemed me a nutcase because I’m such a tech evangelist. But far be it from me to scream, “I TOLD YOU SO!”

That reminds me of the time my relative finally traded in her old zero-function cell for an i-Phone and called me because she couldn’t figure out how to work i-Tunes… (Not that I enjoy or understand i-Tunes, mind you.) Gee, she even uses text messaging sometimes now.

Seriously, does anyone else find these conversion and convergent moments as fun as I do?