Why Cell Phones Suck - Part II

Here's a not-uncommon scenario that one of my friends has to go through from time to time.

His girlfriend likes to call him whenever they are apart. Not apart as in "I'm going off to war" or "I'll be across the country visiting family over the weekend." I mean apart as in "I'm just nipping off to the pub for an ale" (no, I have no idea why I wrote that like a British person).

That in and of itself is pretty much the most annoying thing someone can do. I'm out doing my thing, you know I am doing my thing, and yet you still phone me, thereby keeping my from doing my thing. And that was a thing I wanted to be doing!
Why is this?
Just because we have the ability to make sure someone is never, ever outside of our social grasp doesn't mean we should start hounding them so they remember we exist. Maybe she's just really insecure. Maybe she's bored or lonely.
Either way, if I tell you I'm out with someone, or going to see a movie, or doing something that I specifically don't want your company for, please don't call me "Just to say hi" or to "see how things are going."
You're not my mother. This doesn't concern you.

Maybe I am just being misanthropic because my own girlfriend doesn't call me incessantly to see if I am making sure my shoes or tied, or to ask when I am coming home, or to generate some crisis that can only be solved by me coming home right now and holding her hand as I explain that you can, in fact, take more than two Advil in a 24 hour period.

...Actually, looking at that last paragraph it seems like I really do find that just really annoying.

The thing is, too much of anyone is a bad thing. Sometimes we, as people, need a moment away from those we surround ourselves with just to remind us when we return what it is we like about them so much. Failing that, and in the case of someone who just will not let you be alone or apart from them, you just feel constricted and trapped.

So if I am out, and you get the urge to call me, listen to these whispered words of wisdom: Let it be.
You will survive two hours without me, and if not... wow. Get help.

This brings us to another thing. Sometimes I won't answer your call.
It's not that I am screening you out (most likely). Sometimes I just can't hear or feel it ring. Sometimes I lose service, like when I am on the Metro. Sometimes I just don't have the damn thing on me.

Should this occur, leave a message.

Do NOT call back seven more times, leave three messages, and then text me. This makes you appear desperate and needy, which is never, ever a reason to talk to someone.

Worst of all is when a friend (ok, who am I kidding, a girlfriend or boyfriend) becomes paranoid due to a lack of answer.
If you have the kind of mind that jumps from "Not answering phone" to "banging some other guy/girl behind my back" without ever taking a stop at "sleeping" then you need to contact your HMO and look into some well-deserved trepanation. Once again, just because you can reach anyone at anytime doesn't mean you will, or should even try.

Then we come to the old standby used by significant other and parent alike: I thought you were dead.

Yes. Of course. I didn't answer my phone, therefore I had been slaughtered Jack-The-Ripper style. Makes sense. If I call a pizza place at 5 a.m. and don't get an answer I think that the place must have burned down.
Oh wait. No I don't.

Even more egregious is when the statement "I thought you were dead" is prefaced by "It kept rolling right to voicemail."
Cell phones and human bodies are not biomechanically linked. The death of one does not result in the death of the other. Were I dead, my phone would have run twice, then been answered by someone saying in a deep, throaty voice "You're next."
...or so I can only hope.

In the end, people need to realize that a cell phone is a tool. And any tool is used at the discretion of its owner and operator. By getting a phone, I have not signed a contract which states that I will always pick up.

So calm down everyone. Let's all sit back, have a beer, and not talk to one another for a moment and see how that suits us.