Hanging Up on the Phone
Profunksticated doesn’t much like telephone calls. I stumbled onto a couple of blog posts, here and here, agreeing with this sentiment. I loved talking on the phone as a teenager and college student. It didn’t matter if they were local or long distance (I used to run up prodigous phone bills in school I couldn’t afford to pay, and many ended up going to my parents, who needless to say weren’t happy).
When myself and the Spouse first met, we talked on the phone for hours. Then when I returned to school, we talked on the phone for even more hours. I would call collect, she’d refuse the call and then call me right back. We’d talk about our lives, past relationships and dirty to one another. Today, I find our phone conversations mostly involve irritating mundane household matters.
The phone became a necessary evil in my newspaper reporting days. I was told the best reporters go out to a scene and see the news for themselves, but deadlines and those stupid edicts requiring weekly story quotas dictated I use the phone. Today, I prefer to communicate via e-mail or text to tell a colleague what I need for a project. I usually will call only if a deadline is approaching and I haven’t heard from this person.
There is a guy in my 12-step fellowship here in the DMV who has glommed on to me and now expects me to talk to him on the phone every day. He even fancies himself my sponsor although I didn’t ask him to sponsor me. Now, you do that sort of thing (talking on the phone daily) to support someone who is completely new to your fellowship and is struggling to get clean and/or sober. But as an experienced member with more than six years clean, I don’t always feel the need to talk to someone one the phone each day. This person seems to believe that because I’m relatively new to the area, he decided I needed a friend when we met at a meeting and he would be it.
One time I tried texting this individual, and he about had a fit. “I like intimate communications,” he said, adding that texting was impersonal. But how personal is it, I wonder, when this person insists on talking to me and two or three other people on the same call? I hate conference calls. The only time I want to be on a conference is at work or if the discussion involves a crucial personal matter.
And I use a cell phone as my primary means of communication here in the DMV. That said, mobiles are frustrating devices on which to hold a conversation, what with the dropped calls, muffled-sounding voices and static.
The only time I would actually enjoy a phone conversation would be with someone who I haven’t seen or talked to in years. Other than that, I’d rather text, e-mail or *ahem* blog.
