I'll always be a no-Net nerd

Although this is about the Internet, it is written by someone who has never seen it in action. That is, it is not in any way prejudiced by experience. I have missed seeing the Net, in spite of the fact that I am no sort of technophobe - in fact, I'm a fully qualified neophyte nerd, and have been since I bought my Sinclair ZX81 by post all those years ago. I am now on my fifth personal computer, a 486 with CD-rom, 20 megs of RAM, a sound card, and most of the bells and whistles a self- respecting nerd would want, much of which I installed myself. But I do not want to try the Internet. This is why.

I often start a ritual train of thought with the idea that the Net ought to be my sort of thing. I'm a part-time student, occasional writer, full- time teacher, committed Civilisation player and CD-rom encyclopaedia browser, and I could afford a modem and a few minutes of on-line time just by drinking a bit less. Every time, though, this train of thought runs up against the buffers of what I'd actually do on the Net.

From the outside, there appears to be a split in the Net's personality that seems to be getting wider. One push is towards dross on demand, wall- to-wall tat, and that side seems very easy to resist. I still prefer to go shopping in the rain in Newcastle city centre because I'm allergic to the Metro Centre, and I hardly ever hire videos, so the virtual shopping arcade is something I can probably live without.

The other side of the Net seems to be a global train spotters' convention, CB radio gone mad. I don't like Star Trek, I'm happily married, I don't know anything about C++, and I don't want to swap notes with anyone about obscure ways of cheating at SimCity (I can do that at work). I seldom need to write to anyone in a great hurry, though I do use the telephone sometimes, and in any case I don't know if anyone I ever write to is accessible through e-mail. They're all linked to the postal network.

Having made all these disclaimers, I confess my record is far from clean. When I sent off my cheque to that nice Mr Sinclair in 1981, it was without knowing that I'd soon be staying awake till 2am trying to cram more Basic into the 1K memory. And when I installed the CD-rom last year, I wasn't really sure that I'd ever get much use out of it, let alone pleasure or intellectual stimulation. I'm normally a sucker for buying technology with my eyes closed, and usually it has paid off.

There lies the problem. I read an article in a computer magazine about someone superficially in my position. As a case-study, they sent him off to join the Net to see if it was any use - as a sort of easily convinced sceptic. I emphatically do not want to be persuaded that the Net would be useful to me. On the contrary, I want a cast-iron guarantee that I will not find myself at 2am on a working day participating in a conference on primary education in Bangladesh. I want to be sure that I can avoid huge telephone bills caused by my virtual exploration of the Smithsonian. I need convincing that I won't just send e-mail Christmas cards this year, that I will still go out and meet real people at conventional times, that I will still recognise my wife.

I admit it might be nice to chew the keyboard with the one other person in the universe interested in the semiotics of civic architecture, assuming that such a person is on the Net. But there is still a wage to be earned, dogs to be walked, sleep to be slept, and I need to know whether Raquel and Curly get together again. From a television screen, not from UK.cix/tv.chat@corrers or whatever.

It is no use contemplating trying it with the security of being able to give it up. "A month's free membership ... hours of free on-line time ... no commitment" might sound safe, but at the end of the month you have a warm modem, an unfinished conversation with a concrete poet in Wood River, Illinois, and you're waiting for a reply from a long-lost cousin in Manchester whose real address you forgot to request. The Net will have to wait. I intend to base my retirement on a foundation of single malts, and that is still the plan.