Take a minute and remember the last time you had dinner with your friends. How many minutes of “sane”, continuous conversation did you have? 2, 3 or maximum 5 without being interrupted by the sound of a cellphone ringing? “Sorry I have to take that” is a recurrent sentence in our every day’s life. Better yet, did you feel that most of the time you were having a monologue because the person facing you or sitting next to you was vaguely nodding while texting at the same time? Everyone is engrossed in a conversation with whatever interests him/ or her on his/ or her cellphones including the hostess! She has to yell twice to grab the attention of the guests who seem to discover for the first time their surroundings.
Bored with our own inflated ego, we try to strike a conversation with another guest only to find out that it’s impossible to make eye contact. The game he’s playing on his mobile seems to be more fascinating than anything we’re saying. Aren’t we always trying to take sneakily a tiny peek into our own mobile to check out if we got any new message from our kids, hubby, partner, lover or friend? We’re inhabited with an irresistible impulse and can’t wait till after dinner. It has become a reflex that possesses us and turns us into Pavlov’s willing creatures. We resent any remark that might interrupt our one-to-one with our CELLPHONE/ BFF. We can’t tear our eyes from the last riveting news coming from an acquaintance’s profound, copy paste philosophical thought about men, life, her cat, her second cousin’s wedding picture…. What is it that keeps us glued to the screen regardless of present company, kids or anything human? Are we that bored with everything going on in our real life? Have we become that shallow and self-serving? Is it a syndrome of acute loneliness?
We feel that we have to make an effort to have a good conversation, discuss a topic or even gossip without checking on our phones constantly. Social manners are a thing from the past. At a restaurant, gathering, seminar, conference…. We’re always trying to steal a look at our beloved mobiles.
What to do? We’ll try to focus more on the human and less on the devices. Then, and only then we’ll win the right to admonish our kids and complain less about our partners’ receding interest in us. The new triangle in our current relationships consists of the man, the woman and the device. Sadly enough we are jealous of the attention and the pleasure our partner seems to relish and enjoy every time he gets in trances with “the other woman/man”.
What he/she has got that we don’t have? Well! Presence I think. IT listens to us, answers and entertains us without as much as a word! No complaints, no nagging, no insecurities and no demands!
We’ve got to make a choice: Do we want to share our lives with a partner, a family and friends or do we face a life of utter solitude?