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Cellphones Ruined Communication
My Attempts at Maintaining Friendship Without a Cellphone in The 21st Century
By Ethan Indigo Smith
I am single in the 21st century. Without too much more elaboration I am a washed up snowboarder and neophyte author. I realized I had to write this after the last thing, the last girl I had a crush on, last asked me, ‘do you have cellphone?’ before ceasing to communicate with me. My name is Ethan Indigo Smith and I do not have a cellphone.
I spent fifteen years snowboarding and preparing for snowboarding and to show for it I have two bad ankles, two bad shoulders and a thousand stories of some beautiful moments on Earth, but no other half currently. For a while I worked in sales. At one point, on the insistence of one company I worked for, I had two cellphones.
After about four years in sales I started to think about branching out and pursuing my dreams of writing. And soon after I did the unthinkable, I got rid of my cellphone. At first my friends thought I was weird and then I stopped hearing from my friends as much. I have a landline, facebook and email and I even got a free online number to where I could text people, but definitely don’t talk with as many people as much. And realistically having no cellphone makes it admittedly difficult to be reached, but the fact that everyone has cellphones makes it difficult to communicate. Texting is normal, calling, especially from home is just strange nowadays. As soon as I as began writing, people began to talk with me less, even though I had only more to talk about, without a cellphone it was like I became ostracized.
During this time I met a girl the old fashioned way; while out. And she gave me her number the old fashioned way; written on piece of paper. And I began speaking with her the old fashioned way; I called the next day and told her how great it was to meet her. We ended up dating for a while. This was after getting an online number for texting solely for what has become a new tradition. Before communicating vocally you mostly have to bypass the new feminine texting firewall. The text test is the new courting, it’s an intellect check, a giggle gauge and a way to see if you know the difference between there and their. After dating for a bit the first subject her and I argued over was invariably me not owning a cellphone. And from this stemmed our last argument. Since then the firewall of the text test has only grown and without a cellphone Rapunzel won’t consider letting down her hair.
I don’t have a cellphone, but I have the texting skills to seal a five thousand dollar order in under 140 characters. I don’t have a cellphone, but can produce laughs from tears. I don’t have a cellphone, but have a sweet voice and I’m a good listener. I don’t have a cellphone and it makes me unapproachable, not unreachable, but it makes me weird to communicate by other means. I am unreachable and unapproachable and weird if and when I attempt to write down a girl’s number or call her from a landline, and or just call without climbing the texting firewall properly.
I wonder if others have tasted a similar sour bite in not owning a cellphone? I wonder if others have experienced the new feminine firewall, that without a cellphone or some ingenuity, one cannot surmount. I wonder if others have experienced how cellphones essentially have made reaching each other easier and contrastingly communicating with others more difficult?
