I think I have found our new (old) sofa table, but I am just waiting on a response from the person selling it. I have been trawling a secondhand site for several weeks now and haven't found much suitable, but this one looks perfect and, for only 30€ would fit my preferred budget of "cheap" too.
This weekend, we have a belated family get together for our daughter's birthday, so it would be nice to have a table in the loungeroom to put coffees upon. I like the idea of having old tables around, as the little furniture we do have is predominantly new, so it adds in some texture and more character, so that I don't have to hold up the personality atmosphere on my own - Or something conceited like that.
If I had far more money than I do, I would likely still be spending my time hunting for these kinds of items as while savings can be made, I enjoy the search of it too. I know a lot of people who can't be bothered with doing this and would rather just buy what they are after new, but it is is like taking a taxi everywhere on vacation in a new city - the best bits are never seen.
I guess it is a bit like "old-school" dating too, where back in the day people would meet in the (meat) marketplace and have to actually talk to each other to make a connection. From what I have heard, flirting is a dying art as people have turned to digital aids to "optimize" their connection rate, even though I have the sneaking suspicion it doesn't yield very good results - though it depends what you are looking for.
Flirting face to face though is a highly efficient filtering system, as whole clusters of pertinent information can be transmitted and received, even if the people involved do not want to show their hand. Body language, timing, tone and immediate reaction to challenge can tell a lot about a person, with most having very little chance of catching themselves, meaning fakery is easy to identify.
Because of the benefits of face to face communication, it is far easier and quicker to run through many of the things that are important to us in regards to character, rather than have the "lag" of digital communication, where people have the time and opaqueness available to fashion their responses to suit. the amount of times my friends have met people who "seemed so nice" yet upon meeting, were completely different to what they had portrayed, is high.
There are obvious benefits to digital dating too - but other than the convenience of introduction, is it really saving effort when who people end up meeting with, are not close to suitable at all? Some of my friends have argued about this with me as they believe they are good at identifying the BS, but they also don't seem to be finding the people they are looking for either and say it is getting harder, with relationships lasting less time. As said, it also depends on what you are looking for, as a one-night-stand doesn't necessarily require a very high bar to hurdle for some people.
Maybe I am picky.
It is interesting to think about the efficiency of communication in this areas though, as it seems that people tend to value quantity over quality. This is perhaps an indictment of the world in general, where for example, people think a high-speed stream of information pouring in through their screens is helping them better understand what is going on, without realizing that it is probably having the opposite effect, since most is noise, drawing their attention away from what actually important.
Twitter is a good example of very low value information streams on average, where even if there is something useful, it is very quickly replaced by a lot that is not. This means that the attention is continually pulled to new content (as that is the way the brain works) without investigating thoroughly, and then favoring easy content (as that is the way the brain works) that doesn't bring a lot of value to enact positive change.
Life used to be far simpler to know what was "good and bad" for us, but now there is so much complication and conflict of opinion that it has become a far trickier landscape to navigate. Yet perhaps by design, because there are so many things grabbing our attention, we don't have the energy to investigate what is right for us adequately, ending up relying on defaults and algorithms to guide us through - with a lot of failure that might at first, seem like success due to framing.
On that note, even with my terrible Finnish messages, I got a confirmation that the table is ours and I can pick it up after work. What is good as even if the pictures and description don't match with the reality of seeing it, it is the type of thing I am able to repair, rather than have to go back online to sift through looking for another more suitable.
The uncertainty of outcome is part of the attraction of the chase and high value is scarce and generally takes a little more work to obtain. Convenience is common and more often than not, disposable.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]