We don't use the phone no more

Thanks to some Turkish equivalent of Night Nurse/Niquel I am all better and back in the office, armed with the latest insights into human behavioral oddities.

People don't use their phones no more and I think I know why. It involves having to be coherent on the spot, being able to articulate your thoughts without gesturing, without making bold statements, or EMPHASIZING THINGS. It means you have to respond right then and there and nothing except a lot of 'like's' and attempts at changing the subject buys you time to think. Also it can feel a bit disconnected when speaking on the phone as if all of a sudden it is obvious that we are all strewn across continents, one of us drinking the morning coffee, the other one that last glass of wine, and when you add the necessity to speak in a language other than English or whatever the default happens to be, without even the verbal version of spell check, I do get a bit flustered. Besides, have you ever gotten a phone call at a convenient time? Exactly. No. And that is why I know I am bound to get you as you are running out the door, watching a movie, in the car or worse yet yelling at boyfriend/girlfriend.

And that might just be why people don't answer their phones ever. Being home for a full two days, a bit of cabin fever set in and I decided to pick up that apparatus after all. Nobody, I mean, not a single person across any time zone picked up their phone. Not even my mother. Nobody. You know who you are. But I got wiser than that. You don't answer your phone because you know you can call back, don't you? Yes, but what if you don't know who is calling? I have observed my very own behaviour and here is my conclusion: While I know who you are most of the time, I don't know who you are when you are calling my landline. That's right, I got no caller ID. So even though I might be doing something really really important or might be too inarticulate to say much at all, I won't take the risk of not answering because after all it could be National Geographic.

What happened to be good old days of sitting holed up in your room, Guns' n Roses posters everything, phone in hand, your best friend who you just saw in school twenty minutes prior on the other side of the line, and nothing in the world more important than the four hour analysis of whether Jonny really looked at you or into the distance or worse yet, at someone else.

So call me, ok?