It's not the phone itself, but it's the way it impacts my life that needs to change. And it's not just me, another friend has given up her phone, but we'll get back to that later.
Yesterday I was texting back and forth with a friend. Very mild flirting, no swear words, no anatomical references, certainly nothing beyond "Did you buy some Nutella?" which is code word for sex, so, like I said, pretty mild stuff. I find out during the day that she's pissed at her husband for acting like a queen bee (if he didn't have kids, I'd swear he was gay, and I know he might be, but that's another post). I get a text around 9:00pm and then she goes quiet. I know she is super protective of her phone so I don't think anything of sending her a quick little "Good night" text.
Nothing
Until this morning.
She says that she got the text while they were having sex and that he picked it up and saw my name. Remember, we all go to church together. So he's mad that I'm texting her and that it interrupted sex. I asked her why she didn't ignore it and she replied that the room was dark and that my text lit up the whole room and he was closest and curious.
I gave her the following rule: When the panties come down, the phone goes off.
Come on people, we've had our phones for a while now, haven't we learned how to use them yet?
Being the gentleman that I am, I asked if I had interrupted her orgasm, and she said that she had already finished so the timing was OK with her. I asked if I owed him a handy to finish him off and she didn't respond.
So now I'm faced with next Sunday when we see each other in the hallway outside the Hall.
What do I say? Anything?
What if he confronts me?
Will he be mad?
What story did she tell him?
Learn to manage your phone people. Geez.
As for my other friend, my main way of talking to her was through a little used picture sharing app that has messaging. We'd send pics back and forth (nothing naked) and talk and text and such. She turned it off and I lost a major source of interaction. Why? I asked.
Because our phones can do everything, we feel compelled to do everything, all the time.
Text? Got it
E-mail? Constantly
Pictures? Too many of too many intimate things
Skype? Good signal? Why not?
Tumblr? Never stops
Twitter? I've got two accounts.
Blogger? It doesn't work well, but it will be a short post.
Facebook? Another friend, hooray!
Reader? Oh, who posted today?
It never ever stops, so she had to stop it. Good for her.
We can't let technology rule us, we must rule our technology and, ultimately, ourselves.
It's no fun, but we have to.
Post a Comment