Constant Contact

I still recall the days in the eighties when clunky cell phones became a common sight among technophobes everywhere. If you owned one, you were all the rage. Sure, they looked like dorky gray boxes and we had to get used to the weirdness of talking into a device while walking around a grocery store, but other than that we all felt suddenly blessed that we had a way to call our partners on the way home for missing dinner ingredients, or the tow truck when driving over a random nail at three a.m. It was like life grew itself an extra security measure to make us feel aware and connected at all times. We praised modern convenience for this new honing device.

Today, the options in communication have mushroomed so much more, that aside from cell phones we have pagers, beepers, blackberries, text messages, email and still, arcanely, the old home phone voice message box. My question is, with so many choices, why in the hell is it harder than ever to get a hold of someone these days? Instead of providing us with easier routes towards instant interaction, it seems that communication growth has muddled the system in ways we couldn’t have foreseen 

For example, my friend Brandon gets an email for a potential blind date on Sunday. Only he doesn’t get email access for the next three days due to the trials and tribulations of a new cable system. Thus, on Monday, after the matchmakers wonder what happened to Brandon, he gets the email and calls apologetic that he missed his potential soul mate. The question of why the phone was not utilized ever arises because everyone knows hat the quickest way to Brandon is through the automatic send button. Thus the chain of disjointed communication continues allowing all of us newly acceptable reasons to miss appointments, stand people up, or blame electronics for our own flawed schedules.

Another friend Stanipopolos doesn’t consider his voice mail an appropriate means for canceling evenings or leaving messages about what to bring to a party because most of the time his cell is for booking his infamous hair appointments and he tunes out of that vibration once the salon door closes. He has cherries and vodka concoctions waiting for us one night and never gets our bail out messages so he drinks alone.

For others of us, more methods of communication have turned our lives into a three ring circus of constantly checking our various portals for up to the minute missives and I have to check email, cell phone and home phone numbers frequently in order to know everyone who is trying to get a hold of me at any given time.

The ones who don’t get email aren’t as close to us as the ones who do, but what is close? Passing around inane jokes, political persuasives, dirty cartoons and

In the old days, I griped about having to memorize an endless string of memories. But today, not only does my little black book carry area codes and seven digit strings, but notations about what preferred method to use to get a hold of someone, or worse; a list of numbers with specific time frames for which the person will be available within each. Does anyone answer their phone anymore, or has home become relegated to the one place where people still have an ounce of privacy, where they can say, I don’t give a fuck, “I’m screening!”.

People still have an excuse if they “didn’t read an email” when they were supposed to receive a timely missive and true rebels refuse to carry cell phones so that they have at least one place where people can’t assume they are automatically found.

What did we do without this constant communication?

In an age when we’ve given ourselves every conceivable way of getting a hold of one another, it seems our etiquette towards polite communication has flown out the window. With a growing number of outlets for transmission, why is it these days that I feel so out of touch with everyone?