I’m not afraid of phone calls. I hate phone calls. Same way I hate boiled pizza. Makes me judge your parents for the decisions you make.

Let’s walk through the average phone call, as the technology is currently implemented and people interact with it, because my username checks the fuckout.

Phone might ring. Who fucking knows? There’s one volume rocker on the side of the phone and it controls like nine different and independent volume sliders depending on what app is in control of it this specific nanosecond, so trying to turn Tom Scott down while trying to fall asleep to Something You Mighte Naught Have Knowne, you also turned your ringer off. Shrodinger’s fucking ringtone.

Phone actually rings. It’s a number from your area code you don’t recognize, which means it’s either the local Republican wanting money, or a criminal in India.

Phone actually rings, it’s someone on your contacts list for once, so you pick up the phone. Apple patented the horizontal slide, so real phones can’t use it. Instead sometimes it’s a button and sometimes it’s a touch-here-and-slide-in-any-direction. When the phone was new you set up a “gesture” where an upward motion and placing the screen near your face would automatically answer the call…that feature might have been deprecated. Did you set it up where pushing the power button would answer the call? Nope. That just hung up on them.

Phone rings again, you do the stupid slide gesture. “Hello?” Silence. Silence. Silence. Line goes dead. Okay, this is one in three phone calls that just don’t work.

Phone rings again, stupid slide gesture. It doesn’t recognize it, you try it again, it works. “Hello?” “Hello?” “Hello?” “Ah, can you hear me?” three second pause “Yeah I can year you.” (audio quality that resembles a 90’s McDonald’s drive thru speaker that’s only been pissed in once this week)

I don’t know why I haven’t started answering the phone “what the PITY FUCK did you call me for?” Because I don’t think anything more subtle will get people to get. to. the. POINT!!!

“What’s up, Bob?” “Hey Greg, it’s uh. It’s Bob.” I knew this before I answered the phone because caller ID has been a standard feature on phones since I had my first handjob, but the lead in your synapses has prevented you from internalizing this concept. We’ll try and let it soak in for another 20 years I guess. “What’s. up. Bob?” “Uh, well, nothin much, what about you?” “WHAT’S UP BOB?” “Well uh, me and uh, me and Cindy are gonna go to the uh, the uh Chinese place and get some, like, takeout or whatever? You want anything?”

“No thanks.”

“Uh well, uh, you sure, I mean like, we can get you somethin.”

“I’m sure.”

“Well uh, okay then I guess. You been doing okay?”

“Bob I’ve got something on the stove, I’ve got to go.”

“Oh alright, well, uh, I guess I’ll let you go then, talk to ya later”

take phone away from face, wait for the screen to light up again to see where the end call button is because it’s not a fucking button anymore because the amoeba that ate Steve Jobs’ brain escaped and multiplied to the rest of the tech industry, by the time you find it, the other party hung up.

===

The same exchange via SMS:

“hey wer gettin chinese want some”

“nah. thx.”

“k”

Removed by mod

Just use predictive text and select whatever the most unhinged option that communicates your point. Only exception is that I draw the line are the constant attempts that thing tires to flirt with my mum. Seriously, the amount of 💘 😘 it suggests is concerning. I’m not American.

…you okay?

Voice calls don’t have the same costs for everyone. I’ve worked in tech support, taking calls all day, and that shit wore on me. Dealing with text is just lower cost, at least for me. Pretty ableist to just declare one medium the one true medium, all others are a sign of ineptitude.

Might be worth noting, also, that an earlier generation said the same goddamn thing about phone calls, as compared to F2F interactions.

Somehow, the tune always changes, but the dance steps remain the same.