Cell Shocked

by Nicholas Allen — June 14, 2007

I'm not really a cell-phone kind of a guy. Don't get me wrong, I have one. My parents, who are getting on in years, insisted on that a while back. "God forbid there should be an emergency and we can't reach you," my father said, and I finally broke down. And I can't deny that, in many ways, the cell makes dating easier. It's one more way to reach the girl whose phone number you got a few nights back, and one more way for her to reach you.

But it also seems to make dating harder in many ways, at least from my perspective. It goes without saying that a woman who spends a first date answering cell-phone calls from her best friends is a woman I won't be asking out again. Ditto for the women who don't necessarily answer or make calls over dinner, but who carefully place their phone on the table between us, within easy reaching distance just on the off chance that it might ring over the course of the evening.

I once dated a pediatrician. She was the only one I've given a mental "rudeness exemption" to over the years, because even I realized that the calls she received from her service were more important than whatever movie we were seeing or dinner we were having.

Other than that, though, I'm fairly ruthless. It's different if you're in a long-term relationship with someone you see practically every day, where formal "dates" meld into just spending enough time together that cutting off contact with the outside world during that time would essentially make you hermits. But, on the first few dates, especially, taking calls during the date sends a strong message: the person on the other end is more important than you are.

I would imagine that women feel the same way about men who can't control their cell-phone trigger fingers on dates.

What really breaks my poor, masculine-yet-tender heart, though, are the number of women I see roaming the streets of the city who would be devastatingly attractive if only I didn't happen to overhear their cell phone conversations. It isn't the fact that they're on their cell phones so much as the content of their dialogues that I can't help but hear, given that they're blaring it out at a volume typically reserved for a stage actress trying to project to the back of the theater. I was in the elevator of my office building only yesterday with a drop-dead gorgeous girl. Just when I was thinking that those afternoon, post-lunch blahs might be about to pick up, her phone rang. We were together for another 45 seconds before the elevator got to my floor, during which she used the word "like" 17 times. I shit you not. "It was like...and then he was like...so she was like...and were both, like, right? I mean, like...you have to like...you know, it's like...I mean, like, who, like, does that?"

"Like, like, like," I started muttering to myself. She looked at me as if I were demented. I probably was. What I was actually thinking was that if I had any government secrets, I'd spill them in a heartbeat if only I never had to hear this woman speak again. I'd honestly rather chew on tinfoil while girls with long fingernails scratched chalkboards than spend an evening alone in the company of such a woman, no matter how beautiful she is.

Nevertheless, I had strong hopes for the future of cell phones when I used mine yesterday to call a woman I had a great date with this past weekend. I was walking through the park and thinking of her and this, I realized, was the great beauty of the cell phone culture--the ability to make a spontaneous call to someone who's on your mind.

I didn't reach her, so I left a message saying how much I'd enjoyed the other night and that I was hoping to see her again soon. She didn't call back, but she did text me a couple of hours later, saying she'd had a great time too and that she'd love to go out this weekend.

Is a text message an acceptable response to a phone message? I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Nicholas Allen is a freelance writer and columnist based in Manhattan.