Text? Twitter? Facebook Message? Email? Which Account? Old-Fashioned Call? Which Number?

Frank Bruni's observation is so true. With all the different ways of contacting people, it's hard to remember which person prefers which form:

The other night I did something silly. In a hurry to reach my friend K., I made the mistake of calling him on his mobile phone.

“You should have texted,” he chided me the next morning, when he finally heard the voice mail I’d left. “You know that’s the fastest way.”

It’s hard to keep track. Because my friend A., who frequently sends text messages, somehow fails to recognize that she might receive them as well and almost never checks. With her, I’m supposed to call.

But not with my friend D. Between his two mobile phones, two office phones and one home phone, you can never know which number to try, and he seems never to pick up, anyway. E-mail is his preference. He has three e-mail addresses, at least that I know about, but I’ve figured out the best one. I think.

You hear so much about how instantly reachable we all are, how hyperconnected, with our smartphones, laptops, tablets and such. But the maddening truth is that we’ve become so accessible we’re often inaccessible, the process of getting to any of us more tortured and tortuous than ever.

There are up to a dozen possible routes, and the direct one versus the scenic one versus the loop-de-loop versus the dead end changes from person to person. If you’re not dealing with your closest business associates or friends, whose territory and tics you’ve presumably learned, you’re lost.

So true. I have folks who make generous use of Facebook messaging, which I infrequently consult, and then I have to remember whether someone I'm contacting prefers text to email and, if email, which one.

The upside: We can all have an excuse when we didn't respond, hey?

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