I love you. Don’t call me
I look at my phone, and I notice I’ve missed calls from 5 people. Neither of them mention why they’re calling. Neither of them are sufficiently versed in technology to come find me on the internet. Neither of them have discovered the usefulness of text messages. All of them must speak to me instantly. All of them leave long rambling voicemails without specifying what they want. Most notably… All of them are people I love dearly.
ugh.
How did this happen? How did I become this person who absolutely detests phone conversations? And why this resentment toward the people I love? Why *wouldn’t* I want to be that dependable person loved ones can rely on for a midday chat? When either my best friend or my significant other call, I get excited and can’t wait to talk even though we may have just seen each other hours earlier. (But then again, my best friend is a textpert who hates voicemail… and my significant other leaves short loving voicemails he knows I won’t check for weeks, but will thoroughly enjoy when I hear them). Let anyone else call and I wonder what they want and why they’re leaving voicemail if they aren’t being specific.
there is something wrong with me. of this, I am certain…
One would be inclined to call it a generational thing but there is no excuse for my 25yr old cousin. Why doesn’t she just email me? or text? or tweet? And my 23yr old brother has no excuse either (happy birthday baby). But I love being around them. And I love hearing their voices… just… not in my voicemail.
the point in writing this is to self diagnose my situation. I know I can’t possibly be alone here. For every person that hates text messages because they’re “impersonal”, there is a family somewhere that takes their house phone off the hook when they get home. For every person who calls multiple times in one day, there’s another who keeps their phone on silent… FOREVER.
the problem
We are left with no social duty in many of the communities we live in here in the U.S. Elders must be answered. Family members must be tended to. The thoughts and ideas of friends and other loved ones must be entertained. This is not happening because the only affirmative duties we adhere to are those put in place by our employers. If we aren’t getting paid to do it, there is no sense of duty; no sense of urgency; no sense of necessity. We share this practice with youth as well, qualifying our unavailability in their lives with the fact that we must work. Qualifying our absence with the justification that we must do X,Y,Z for the employer who must therefore be more important than the loved ones at home. I skipped my brother’s baby shower because I “had to work”. I cut back on volunteering because I “had to work”. I have a new baby cousin here in New York who I have yet to meet… because I “have to work”. How can we expect children to grow into loving adults that place family FIRST if we don’t lead by example? How will we instill the fact that money need not be your motivation for “success” if that is all we teach? Don’t get me wrong, I love my career (and anyone who has been visiting this blog or reading my tweets for a while knows it’s impossible to do my job for “money”). But I now recognize the need to create a voice for myself that sets social affirmative duties in my life. This way, I can hopefully start to appreciate and value my loved ones with the fervor and passion that I have at work. In something as simple as voicemail and phonecalls, I can show love. I may not want you to call… I may want to throw my cell phone out the window when I see it’s you, but I shall answer & show you love.
so. I love you. I’ll call you back. promise
Seems like the more ways we have to stay in touch the further apart we get.
This is very true! The love that I anticipate receiving from those important ones is the same love I avoid until I receive a text message, tweet, email, or other written form of communication. I used to defend myself by saying I am a writer and this is just who I am. But, really, what is my problem? Sigh.
This was me a few months ago then my mother REALLY got into texting and my problem became clear. I had relegated so many friends to BBM chats, texts, tweets, FB messages and emails. I’d talk to them via those methods for days but let them call me and my phone which would STAY on silent would light up. I’d watch it glow until they’d leave voicemails I’d never check. I loved them but I didn’t want to talk to them on the phone. It seemed intrusive to actually sit and listen instead of typing. It was like my friends and family had become Digital Ghosts – beings that only existed in digital devices…except my mother. I’d always answer her calls no matter what I was doing so when she relegated ME her obviously favorite child to Digital Ghost status by letting me go to voicemail and hitting me back with a “I’ll call you back later” text I questioned my logic and diagnosed my problem. In my case it took the person I love more than anyone else giving me a taste of my own medicine for me to start to change. Karma I guess.
Thanks for posting! I had begun to feel the same way! Perhaps it’s the volume of people and just how often we are in contact with them all these days. Employers, colleagues, family, friends, facebook friends, neighbors, ……I know I feel overwhelmed with how much contact I have and begin to feel obligated to call back instead of realizing and experiencing the love that’s being expressed to me. The facebook, the texts, the emails, so many more people are included in our daily lives electronically than in days gone by. We lose track of our priorities. Spending more time concerned about our 100 “friends” on facebook, than our families. It’s become quantity, not quality when it comes to our relationships. I guess there is no need to talk to one person if you’ve already talked to 100 whether they’ve heard your voice or not. Let us be compassionate toward our loved ones who need to hear our voices. I will do better.