Not quite magic.

I've heard a number of friends talk about the fact that they catch up on Google Talk, so I thought I'd install it, then... abracadabra... I'd be able to chat online.

Not quite that simple.

After downloading, then fixing the anti-virus hiccup, then downloading, then establishing a separate gmail account in order to delete the new gmail account in order to register, then entering a couple of friends' addresses so that they exist in Google Talk for me. And now, two days later I haven't found anyone online anyway and so I'm left wondering if:-

a) no-one wants to talk to me, and me not being on Google Talk was a ploy to explain why they were always talking and I wasn't invited

b) their Google Talk doesn't have me listed, so they don't know I'm waiting for them to come on line so that I can talk to them.

c) it is technology. Of course it wasn't going to be simple. What was I thinking?!?

The chances that this post makes me seem anything other than a paranoid technophobe?

... Not going there!