So many phones, so little to say

I think my cell phone is giving me an inferiority complex.

Because I use the thing so rarely, and can find no compelling reason to alter my habits, I am forced to conclude that either I have too few friends with which to communicate my thoughts throughout the day or my life is so dull and uneventful that it simply is not worth sharing with other people.

Odd as it seems, ever since I got my handy cell phone a few months back I’ve been feeling increasingly out of touch with the world.

What else am I to think as I watch people all around me chatting constantly on their cell phones, generously relating all of the rich details of their lives to anyone within earshot? They certainly don’t seem to suffer from a lack of things to say, or from too meager a supply of people who are willing and eager to listen to them.

They talk while walking down the street or driving in their cars. They talk while sitting in restaurants and bookstores, strolling through the supermarket aisles, or even as they’re working out at the local gym.

If they’re all quite capable of making phone calls every 10 or 20 minutes, straining the very limits of their liberal cell phone plans, why is it that I can go an entire day or more at a time without even thinking about the nifty device that sits idly in my pocket?

It’s enough to make a guy feel practically anti-social.

I was made painfully aware of my cell phone inadequacies the other day while sitting in the parking lot of a supermarket. For no good reason, other than I couldn’t remember the last time I had used my cell phone, I fired up the thing and called my wife to ask her if we needed milk from the store.

That’s when it dawned on me that at least 90 percent of the calls I make are to ask my wife if we need something from the store.

To veteran cell phone users, hard-core yakkers, I suppose this admission makes me appear pathetically unimaginative, a person who clearly is not living up to his wireless communication potential.

A friend of mine, who regards his cell phone as a lifeline, suggested to me that developing a proper cell phone habit takes practice. Since we are not born with phones pressed to our ears, he theorized, we must develop the urge to communicate endlessly with other people. Compulsive phone chattiness is a learned behavior, he said, and I would have to agree with him.

We don’t talk so much

more these days because

our thoughts are somehow more profound and witty

and engaging than they used to be in years past, and therefore must be expressed without delay. Overhearing any typical cell phone conversation on the street is proof of that.

We’re increasingly loquacious simply because technology has allowed us to be, has conditioned us to be, without any need for restraint. There’s a veritable gabfest going on out there, a carnival of ceaseless chatter in which everyone is welcome to participate, and the only use I can think of for my wondrous cell phone is to call home occasionally to see if we need milk. How pathetic.

“Once you get used to it, you won’t be able to live without it,” said my ever-connected friend, who reminded me to keep in touch.

I promised him I would, just as soon as I had something worth talking about.