females and their phones
notes on intimate communications media (mind you I graduated on the subject)
Last week I checked Chloe into the hotel. An attractive girl, Australian, semi-short haircut, sexy raspy voice, probably a girl that owns several leather jackets and looks very cool in them. We walked up three stairs to her attic room, which was smeltering hot. To my surprise, there was an AC installation, which I pointed at quickly, but I had to admit it did not look like it had been installed yet. She did not make a fuss.
A few hours later she is crying at the door of the restaurant, excusing herself because “you are probably very busy” but her phone got stolen and she did not bring other devices and she really needs to let her husband know that she is safe.
She takes my phone, sits at the terrace for an hour thinking of ways to reach him. I offer suggestions but he does not have facebook, she does not remember her instagram login, we call his office which is closed, we write an instagram dm to a restaurant at which he is supposedly dining that night.
She sends iMessages to her own iPad in the hope he sees them.
She somewhat calms down, tells herself she needs to enjoy being in Amsterdam on a sunny day, later takes her book upstairs and tells me she probably won’t be able to sleep. “I’m not the type to panic but I panic because he must be panicking”.
At 22.32 that night I run up three stairs because I have Sebastian on the phone. Chloe comes out, half asleep, dressed in nothing but a towel. There is some relieved laughter, she tells him “it’s not funny you prick” and five minutes later I’m back in the restaurant. My phone receives a text that thanks me for helping out and
“tell Chloe I love her!”
Two days later, Chloe has picked up a new phone Sebastian ordered her ( 1476 euros, I’ll forever have the order details in my iCloud), and must be happily drinking club mate in Berlin. It’s then that Loes walks in.
Loes wears black leggings and an oversized black t-shirt and a low ponytail. She must be around forty and has an average body for her age. Loes lives in the neighborhood and got her phone stolen around the Brouwersgracht. She has been looking for a while but cannot find it. Now she wants to send a message to her “kind of boyfriend” because they have a “sort of date” tonight. Unlike Chloe, she has memorized his number.
She calls him twice, he does not pick up. Upon leaving she tells me she will be back to check my inbox
She returns two hours later. I have to tell her that am westen nichts neues. She calls again. He does not pick up. When she hands me back her phone she says “I have sunk so low now. I have texted hem to please send a time for our meeting”. I tell her it’s alright, we all have sunk so low so often, and if he does not text he simply is not fun.
A phrase as old as time. we glance at a sceenshot of the conversation and while blowing our cigarette smoke away we nonchalantly declare that “het is graag of niet”
Which is exactly what my friend tells me upon reading the whatsapp conversation I’m having with a man who tells me he likes me and wants to see me but declines my subtle and less subtle invitations to do so. I send him a final text telling him texting bores me and he should let me know when he wants to hang out in person. A lie, I guess, texting can be fun. I just don’t have the patience and quickly lose my cool when my messages are left unanswered. I change into a person that does not make plans for the night in case he wants to hang out, of which there is only the slightest indication. I despise that person. I pity her and don’t want to be affiliated with her. She has no chill and woman ought to chill. So I cut off contact. Somehow this definite absence of communication feels much more peaceful than a temporary silence. It must have something to do with being on the waiting end of an interaction as opposed to taking control. As an academic specialist on the subject I can quote Barthes on this, the erotics of text, the elipsis, but for that I’ll refer you to the third chapter of my thesis.
I wrote a full fucking masters thesis on females and their phones in fiction, the technological evolution of communications media and how it affects intimacy over distance. From an academic perspective, it’s fun to blame the medium, but in the end we all know to actually just shoot the messenger. The messenger chooses who gets a swift reply and who doesn’t. On multiple occasions I have tried not giving out my number and instead gave a postal address: “if you really like me, send me a letter”. I tell you the success rate of this tactic currently lies at zero percent.
Yesterday I wrote :
Of course we aren’t just victims, that would be a sad stance. I currently have 191 unread whatsapp conversations. And I’d like to remain hopeful. Clara had a date yesterday after texting for three weeks. I simply cannot fathom the amount of patience. She must be cut from a different cloth. I respect the perseverance. But after writing 40.000 words on the subject of love letters, landlines and texting, I still prefer unmediated immediate interaction.
This morning I woke up to the following:
“Hey Loes,
Hoe gaat het , heb je inmiddels al een telefoon?
Mis je gezellige appjes.”
I didn’t run back up the hotel stairs to tell Chloe Seb loves her. So I take this as my redemption. Time to channel my inner Amélie Poulain and set Loes and Lars up. I’ll report back when they get married.
ps. of course these messages are personal and i have thought about whether i could share them or not. i decided yes because no personal secrets are revealed, only the universal secrets of the lover’s psyche
superbe