TTRSage wrote:
Recently I found out that the term "ear dildo" is an actual slang term (Google it) referring to the bluetooth variety of these contraptions. I use it to refer to the handheld variety. I came up with the name several years ago while sitting in a left turn lane behind a woman who was so enthralled by this thing that she was oblivious to her driving as she turned and looked like she was getting such a thrill out of shoving that thing into the side of her head that she was about to have an orgasm over it. Ever since then I have called them ear dildos.
A month or two ago NBC ran a news story saying that something like 15 percent of all cellphone calls were not actual calls at all but only phony put-ons designed to snub people so as to avoid having to interact with other people. I see this all the time and it annoys me to no end. I also see people who are obviously using the contraptions to make themselves feel significant, like the clown I saw about a week ago standing outside in the pouring rain yapping on his ear dildo when he could just as well have done it inside… or at least under the shelter of an entranceway. Nobody has a signal that poor when standing only a quarter mile from the nearest cellphone tower. Again… cellphones do not connect people but isolate people and are used to avoid true interaction.
So, you're putting people down for avoiding interaction? Don't quite a lot of us dislike interaction with other people? Don't more than a few avoid it? Yet you are putting people down for pretending to have a phone conversation so people won't bother them? That seems a bit hypocritical to me.
You say you see this all the time, how do you know they are phony conversations? Are you just assuming they are snubbing you and avoiding you or trying to show that they are more popular than you or the guy over there or the gal behind the counter with their cellphone? How exactly do you know it's a phony conversation?
Give me some other examples of making themselves feel signifigant with a cellphone please, other than an idiot in the rain. Also, how do you know that is what they are doing with it? How do you distinguish between a genuine conversation and someone making themselves feel signifigant? What are the criteria for that please? I would like to know this so that when I am in the grocery store and my son calls and asks me to pick up some chips and some chicken wings and I'm finding out what kind he wants, I don't walk around looking like I'm trying to make myself feel signifigant while I'm concentrating looking in the frozen food aisle for the exact brand and flavor of wings he's asking me for and I'm telling him what they have.
I've never used mine before to avoid people, but it's a good idea. When I'm taking a walk sometimes the neighbors are out and want to chat and I don't. Pretending to be on the phone would be a good idea, because saying "I'm in a hurry having a casual walk" is a bit rude. I would have to remember to turn the phone off or put it on vibrate only though, because with my luck, it would ring while I had it to my ear.
I think you are confusing avoiding conversation with snubbing. It's much easier and much better to snub someone by simply not acknowledging them or giving them a brief hello and walking away. That's a snub. Avoiding can be done for many reasons and it's usually not to show how much more popular they are than someone else. Most people stop the popularity contest in their late teens or early twenties. Mainly because it doesn't really matter and nobody cares anymore.
So what if someone is using their phone where you can see them? It's not done at you. They probably aren't even noticing you or anyone else. They are in the middle of their phone conversation. So what if somebody is pretending to be on the phone so people leave them alone? That isn't done at you either. If the guy you are talking about was standing in the rain so that people could see him being on his phone, then he has serious problems which have nothing to do with you or anybody else.
As for going outside to talk on the phone, it's simply a habit some people have. My 16yo son does it all the time. Mainly because he doesn't feel like he has enough privacy in his room. If it's raining, he stays on the porch. He does this with cordless and cell phones both. He always walks outside. He walks around the yard. He walks around the driveway. He sometimes sits on the trunk of the car. There is no one around for him to snub or impress with this, except the one old lady across the street who could care less. Everyone else is at work. Except us in the house, and we know he's on the phone. Maybe this guy has the same habit as my son, but not as much sense to stay in out of the rain.
I don't use my phone to avoid interaction with my kids. They are the main ones who call me. I use it to keep in touch with them when we are away from each other. I may be at the store and one calls me from a friends house to ask if they can spend the night, or go somewhere with them. That's responsibility, not avoidance. It's not done at you or anyone else either. It's simply someone taking care of their own business. What is so wrong with that, other than it seems to upset you if someone else is talking on one?
Frances
21 Nov 2011, 3:22 pm
Nicely retro, too.
