Yesterday I received a bodywork session from a fellow, and afterward rode BART to San Leandro to have a dinner date with a guy, our second date. We went for sushi and watched the last few minutes of the Super Bowl during the final portion of our meal.
After dinner, which included an appetizer of fresh wasabi on cucumber slices – amazing, by the way. If you’ve never had fresh wasabi, it’s not to be missed if the chef offers it to you. But was I was saying, after dinner, we were being a little physically intimate and my phone rang. I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I answered it, as it was from a client, and with the current business climate, a missed call is missed income. I talked just long enough to tell him that I’d call him back in a few minutes.
But that got me thinking about cell phone etiquette, and I came across this article on MSNBC:
In Australia, 48 percent said they use their phones “while using the loo,” the company said, and in Taiwan and China, the numbers were even higher, 68 and 66 percent, respectively.
Overall, 6 percent of all respondents said they have taken a call on their phones during a funeral, 10 percent have done so “inside a place of worship” and 16 percent admit to answering their cells while engaging in physical relations. The physics of the latter is almost as unimaginable as the behavior itself.
via Cell phones permeate personal moments – Wireless- msnbc.com.
So, with mobile communication devices becoming almost an extension of our thoughts, and the boundaries of public and private blurring even further, what is appropriate cell phone behavior?
Question: what is your most embarrassing cell phone story?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
As an analogy, I was imagining being in the bathroom and having a conversation through the door with a housemate – this is something my roommates and I do all the time. I really do think it has to do with the level of comfort and closeness with the other person.
I do agree that at weddings and funerals, telephoning is completely inappropriate, though, and too narcissistic a behavior to be tolerated.
The “loo” situation is what horrifies me most. I was at an outlet mall yesterday and went into the men’s room where someone was talking on a phone in the stall, whilst making unpleasant noises and proceeding to tear toilet paper.
I don’t know if the naive assumption is that the recipient cannot hear you, or if the caller simply has no inhibitions. My father started doing this when home phones became cordless. Fortunately, not while sitting, but it annoys the hell out of me when I can hear him urinating. It really does come down to a question of politeness and attention.
The most interesting part about this is the question of whether the value of interpersonal conversations has been reduced or elevated. For instance, in the case of the toilet, I would say it has been reduced in that it is not longer priority enough to “hold it”. In the other cases of funerals and such though, it seems the value of the call has been elevated above all else.
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