Everything exists on a continuum. For example, while running down San Vicente Blvd in Santa Monica last week I marveled at the amount of money a fair number of West Los Angelenos spend on cars. Why do they do that I wondered? I concluded, rightly or wrongly, it was because they’re vain. Porsche, Mercedes, and Range Rover make bank on people’s vanity.

Just as I was starting to feel really superior I caught myself. Glancing at my watch, I saw my average pace for the run was 9 minutes and some seconds. Prompting me to pick up the pace in order to avoid uploading a 9 minute per mile run to Strava.* Why you’re asking yourself. See above paragraph. Granted, more subtle and nuanced, but same concept. The only difference, the degree of vanity.

What does this have to do with Apple’s new Vision Pro you’re wondering. Well, I’m here to connect those seemingly disparate dots.

Maybe the mostly likely reaction to the Vision Pro is to fear for a future where tech laden introversion obliterates interpersonal relations even further. But when I walk into the Plum Street Y weight room almost everyone is already listening to their own music and/or podcasts making spontaneous meetings and convo highly unlikely. Including me.** Same on subways and lots of other public spaces. People are already using smart phones, head phones, and related personal tech to tune out the outside world, including the people they are damn near rubbing elbows with.

Steve likes to talk to me whenever he sees me at the pool or in the weight room. In the weight room, when I see him approaching, I pop out one of my AirPods. Easy-peasy. This is what came to mind when watching this Casey Neistat’s review of the Vision Pro.

Just watch from the 7+ minute mark. The first seven minutes are ridiculous, dystopian, depressing, pick your most negative adjective. But let’s do what Casey does at the end of his review and fast forward to a future where Vision Pro-like products are way way lighter, less obtrusive, and less dorky.

Something like eye glasses that morph into sun glasses in the sun seems likely. It would be easy to sit alone on a bench in New York City and switch seamlessly from being alone in your own multimedia world and then either resting the glasses on top of your head or letting them dangle around your neck whenever someone sits down next to you.

There’s no putting this personal tech toothpaste back in the tube, but my tribe, the introverts, will not roam the world alone, figuratively or literally. There will still be a normal distribution of extroverts. And we will still talk to one another even after the Vision Pro becomes semi-affordable and reaches critical mass.

Vain people will even continue expanding their circle of friends, and sometimes even fall in love, and sometimes even have children.

*Fail.

**Love me my AirPods. You can pry them from cold, dead hands.