I’m allergic to the phone.  I admit it.  If someone calls and I don’t recognize the number, I won’t answer.  And in case you are thinking well, it will go to voicemail: I don’t have that either. And nope, no answering machine. Oh, I WILL answer the phone if you are a very close friend or family member.  My husband will even answer the phone if we don’t recognize who’s calling.  But I much prefer e-mail.  I also have a Facebook account, and a Myspace page, which I check multiple times a day.  My Facebook includes family, and lots of friends old and new, near and far.  It includes people who are too shy to talk to me on the phone, and people who are nervous because it’s been too long and we don’t know what we have in common anymore.  They still talk to me but it’s easier when you don’t have to come up with more than a one-sentence quip.  We talk without ever invading each other’s comfort zone.  I am quite easy to get in touch with, really.

Recently I needed to talk to my mother.  With such a global universe, that should be extremely simple.  Mum has both a house phone and a mobile, has e-mail, and has a Facebook account.  Really, she should be as available as I feel that I am, no matter what she is doing or what time of day it is.  At her house phone, though, her roommate said she was out.  She didn’t answer her e-mail, and I left a message on her mobile.  On a whim, I also called my sister’s phone.  No answer there, either. So I left another message. Several hours later, still no return call.  I made the rounds again.  This time Mum finally answered.  She had received none of my previous messages, but was glad to hear from me.

A few days ago I had to call my sister about something.  Repeat previous process.  After several days of trying, she finally answered.  She was unaware that I had been trying to call for two days, hadn’t seen me on her caller ID, and hadn’t heard my message.

Which all makes me wonder just how ‘global’ our world really is.  Now the scary thing about cyber space is that anything you put out there is there for all to see, even months or perhaps years later.  For instance, I ran across a post someone I know casually had made about me on a forum I had never visited.  Months had gone by in between, but it was still out there.  Thankfully, she said only good things about me, but it really made me think about what I might have inadvertently shared with the entire world.

On the other hand, though, getting in touch with someone specifically can be as difficult as ever.  And perhaps that is to the good.  After all, we each value our own privacy.  To me, the phone is there for my convenience.  I feel no obligation to answer it.  If it rings during dinner, too bad, we are busy.  If it rings when I’m sleeping, I’ll check to see if it’s family since it might be an emergency, but if not, nope not answering.  And if it’s a telemarketer, a polling place, a bill collector well… I’m sure I’m on a list somewhere as “never home”.  The phone is for our convenience, not for theirs.  If it isn’t someone I’d stop to talk to on the street then I’m not going to drop what I’m doing to talk to them… even if I’m doing something mind-numbing or annoying like scrubbing the toilet or loading laundry.

And so… what does it mean in that context, when one’s own family of birth does not answer?  Does it mean I am a person they don’t want to talk to?  Does it mean they are angry, don’t like me, or don’t feel like talking to me?  Does it mean I’m boring, inconsiderate, a lousy listener?  Well, perhaps it is all of these things and they’ve simply failed to share that with me out of tact.  Or perhaps the truth is that we are all busy with our own lives, and just because we can communicate fifteen different ways at any given time, we don’t.  Because at the end of the day, we have our own children, our own jobs, our own housework to do.  We cannot and should not run our lives in such a way that distant people have first dibs on our dwindling time.  And if we don’t have families, that does not mean that there isn’t an entire world out there to be explored with sunshine on our faces and fresh air playing on our cheeks.  We have obligations to fulfill, and Real Life has to come first. Perhaps the idea that we are all part of a global society ignores each of us as individuals. Yes, you can talk to someone from anywhere at any time.  But that doesn’t mean you can talk to the same someone anytime you want.  And that’s a privacy that should be protected.

When I did get in touch with my sister, she had been playing a rock star game on the playstation with her family.  Everyone had a part to play, with someone on guitar, someone singing, someone on the drums. Our call was short because she chose to spend time with her children and husband instead of on the phone.  And that’s the way it should be.