Dear Google maps,

I’m writing to you because I’m your biggest fan. I’m literally lost without you! We go back a long way, you and me: I loved your previous iterations too. I first knew you as TomTom when you were a bulky and expensive piece of hardware, not even terribly accurate. I was a young, woefully- dreadful-at-map-reading community midwife who found that delivering babies was pretty straightforward if she could only find her client! You were the answer to my prayers. I mean, sure, you were young and inexperienced yourself, and we did have some crazy arguments as to why you were sending me down that specific route, or why you didn’t recognise an address I’d plugged in. You’d always remain infuriatingly calm though, you’d never shout back. You’d just tell me, in a resigned voice full of judgy condescension,  that you were rerouting. And I’d yell that of course we were rerouting because your route sucked, and anyway, who the hell knows what 300 ft looks like, how was I supposed to know you meant THAT left…

You  got slimmer and wiser as you matured.  Now you fit inside my phone! Do you remember when I used to carry you in my cavernous handbag along with everything else I might need at any given time? Those were the days, right? There were so many items you’d be sharing bag space with, for example: your now-forgotten rival, my fun-size A-Z (for when you ran out of charge or randomly glitched); my wallet full of bank cards, loyalty cards, some actual cash, and the odd photo; a cheque book (for times when bankcards weren’t accepted) ; my coin purse (for when I needed to feed the parking meter); my actual book (nothing better to do on the tube), my Nokia 3210 which could send text messages for ten pence apiece; my walkman and maybe one or two tapes (30 songs, max); spare batteries for the walkman; my camera (no more than 36 shots unless I was also carrying a spare film…); several pens and my filofax, which conveniently contained both a diary and an address book section… it was cosy, wasn’t it? And there was always a frisson of anticipation, looking for my keys among all that paraphernalia, I could never be quite sure if I’d locked myself out or just put them in a different pocket. Wishing I had a torch to illuminate the darkest depths of my bag.

Now you’re so wise and sophisticated, always in my pocket, always at my fingertip,  I confess to having lost most of the map-reading skills I painfully and onerously acquired before you came into my life. We talk of the next generation being less smart than us Gen Xs but that might be disingenuous. After all why waste precious brain bandwidth on mundane stuff like map reading (I’m sure there are some situations where your life depends on it, but for most of us, not so much) when you no longer need to. We really needed to but it wasn’t an efficient use of time.

But, Googlemaps, here’s the thing. While I did (just about) learn to get around South London without you, I have never ever developed a sense of direction. Jest all you want about me being a typical woman, but I reckon there’s more to it than that. My mother has an uncanny connection with the North Star (sadly it wasn’t hereditary) but my dad, not so much. He had a pilot’s license, back in the days when you navigated with a map and a compass and a certain amount of intuition based on what you could see below… obviously you could hardly stop for directions. Still, it usually worked well enough. Except for that time when he accidentally ventured into Heathrow airspace. Imagine that nowadays: air traffic control giving sky-rections  to a directionally-challenged dude with a foreign accent in a light aircraft flying over the the busiest airport in the country!

Let’s face it, you were developed by men. For men. Men who are just as likely to be dire at directions but who will NEVER admit it (why do you think they don’t ask?) You, sweet Google Maps, merely gave guys means to stop asking (while not getting more and more locationally challenged). Huge win for everyone, not gonna lie – couples around the world can stop having THAT argument!

But Google Maps, jokes aside, what’s with your so-called arrow? Why is it always pointing the wrong way? Why do I have to spend 5 minutes every time we start walking together trying to guess where your arrow will actually end up, irrespective of which way it was pointing… surely with your all-knowing, all-seeing sophistication you can do better? And for heaven’s sakes, you have GOT to stop telling me to “head northwest.” Unlike my mother I don’t have the North Star on speed dial much less a sixth sense for magnetic North. I live in London: I can go days without seeing the sun, let alone any navigationally useful night star, assuming I did find them helpful. Which I don’t. Starry navigation didn’t work out too well for the three Wise Men either, to be fair. They were 12 days late. Three wise women would have asked for directions and helped with the birth!Yes, my lovely, I do know what a compass is for and yes, I can know I can get an app. Look, I sorta understand the compass theory but IRL, I’m the hopeless idiot who confidently heads off in the wrong direction. 

Every. Single. Time.

Please, mon amour, don’t make me beg: teach your sodding arrow how to use a compass so it can point me in the correct direction.

Right, gotta go. You and I are going to celebrate Firstborn Son’s 20th birthday. Thanks to you, we won’t be late even though we’ve never been to this restaurant and I have no idea how to get there.

I remain, forever, your most loyal, utterly dependent, much less lost without you, your most directionally challenged fan,

Lost girl