iPhone Widows, Unite!
After nearly a year and a half of dating, my boyfriend and I have weathered most of the problems resulting from two men in love trying to figure each other out. We've survived the petty indiscretions that come at a relationship's very beginning and the odd domestic squabble over laundry and dishes. We've met each others families. He was still there for me after I ate bad Thai food and spent an audible two hours locked in our bathroom with a book and a strip of leather to bite on.
Lately, though, our bonds have been tested by an insidious outside force that has come between us like the urgent need to vomit between two shots of Jameson. It is a wandering eye, of sorts, that threatens to wrench us apart. At dinner, while in bed and even on the bus my boyfriend is eternally choosing to spend his time with someone else instead of me.
If you couldn't guess from this posts' title, the name of my cuckolder is iPhone. Am I the only one in TNG-ville who has felt spurned for an appliance? I can't so much as wonder aloud what tomorrow's weather will be like without having to wait five minutes for my boyfriend to look it up on his phone. If we don't know the name of the song blaring from the 18th and Columbia McDonalds I'll have to guide him like a blind man for blocks while he e-solves the mystery.
I can't be the only homo out there playing second fiddle to a non-battery-operated piece of plastic. What other horror stories do you out there in TNG-ville have? Has your girlfriend done a crossword puzzle while you were doing her? Did you catch your new fuckbuddy perusing facebook during a post-coital cigarette? I too know the cold sting of a quiet, conversation-free lovers' moment during brunch interrupted by the clacking of a touch-screen keyboard or an ill-timed text message.
I'm going to sound crotchety for this, but I'll say it anyway: It irks the living twitter out of me that people would rather experience their existence through portable technology than actually living it.
For those who went to Saturday's Prop 8 protest: How many people did you see live-blogging the event on an iPhone? How many pissed off homos spent as much time looking through their camera lenses as they did looking at the people around them?
I do understand that Saturday was an isolated case and that the resulting historical record of the march is more important than the full attention of all its participants. It's not like I'm innocent either. I can complain till the cows come home about a rude 9:30 club patron watching a show through their camera's viewfinder, but that doesn't mean I've never looked at digital camera pics the second they were taken or filmed myself getting a BJ. As someone who prides themselves at least attempting to live in the moment, though, I fear that we're all living our lives through a wi-fi haze.
The worst offender in this is the iPhone. I don't want to sound like a luddite (or worse, the unibomber) but that particular appliance makes it so easy to check out of your immediate surroundings and spend 24 hours a day plugged into the internet. Does anyone really need to find a low fat pasta primavera recipe on a greyhound bus at 4 in the morning? Do you need to check your email one last time in the elevator on the way out of the office? I think there's a line to be drawn between informed and addicted.
Of course, the second I can afford one of those suckers I'll be just as plugged in as anyone else. I anticipate a hot foursome between my boyfriend, myself and two little phones that will never love us back.
9 comments:
Simple solution: buy an iPhone. A more challenging and healthier solution: try talking to your boyfriend's iPhone about these feelings. Communication is key.
I agree with Yusef's healthier solution.
My boyfriend has an iPhone, but we made it clear very on to keep cellphone usage to a minimum when we spend "quality time" together. I am not saying that we don't break that rule ever, but the event is a very small minority. Granted, we also only spend 2 or 3 nights together a week.
You can start a support group with my boyfriend.
i find it weird to get emails with the "sent from an iphone" tag, especially people i know on a somewhat professional level (professors and a journalist come to mind). it makes me think about where they are when they're sending it. probably not home/office... on a bus? at a club? on the can? having sex? ITS TOO MUCH
A fun solution:
If a friend breaks out their iPhone in mid-conversation, commence to poke randomly at their screen. That tactic seems to work pretty well for me.
i begin to tell absurd stories to see if the other person really believes i was in a sketch with Bill Nye at taping of 'Almost Live!' when they do not flinch, i quickly replace my body with a look-a-like mannequin, blast Styx on the iphone mp3 player, and leave as quickly as possible.
I LOVE Ollie's idea.
I'm totally with you, Zack! I think there's a weird disconnect when people allow outside media to shift their attention away from a single point of focus.
But, this has been long coming. Have you been to a mall lately? How many of them have all the input from the stores, music over the speakers and then TVs every few feet. Really? Who needs that shit?
On NPR the other morning, I heard a bit where people can watch TV and then through the miracle of internet television, order their pizza-for-delivery without getting off their couch. Have these people seen "Wall*E"?
However, all this comes from someone who still doesn't have his own cellphone and won't wear his iPod outside the house when walking down the street.
I can't be the only homo out there playing second fiddle to a non-battery-operated piece of plastic.
The iPhone does have a battery, just not as many vibration settings. It's also made of smooth glass and a metal that's almost soft to the touch that warms to the skin almost instantly. It just feels so right against my...uh, yeah never mind. You're right, tell him to put the damned thing down.
About the restaurant thing...I put my phone on silent (not vibrate, silent) when I'm in a restaurant. I honestly think anything less is rude. In other situations, I don't necessarily mind people texting when I'm with them unless they have a long conversation while I'm simultaneously trying to talk to them (after all, the whole point of a text message is that you don't have to answer it immediately--and even for phone calls there is such a thing as voicemail). But perpetual web-surfing? I do have to admit that would annoy me. I'll read the news on my phone (not an iPhone) if I'm alone on the Metro if I don't have my iPod with me, but that's about it. I think my feelings about this are similar to those about bluetooth headsets: mine lives in my car, and that is the only place I use it. I admit that it's convenient, but I'm not going to jabber away into the air while walking down the street. (Sometimes I wonder if people sleep with those damn things on. It's become ridiculous.)
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