Benjamin Mann is a young professional currently living, working, and dating in Toronto. More of his writing can be found at yourbrainondating.com.
Taking the streetcar in Toronto is always an “enlightening” experience. Last week was no different.
As I stood on the 501, sandwiched between a pungent hipster straddling an undoubtedly rare dog and a loud teenager barking marijuana escapades into a cell phone, I decided to look up from my book and see what everyone else was up to. I had already concluded that the “driver” was busy learning how to use brakes, but what about the passengers?
I peered around.
Some were gazing at the Queen Street sights, some were conversing with their fellow rocketeers, and some were scaring me. But most of the passengers were looking at their cell phones. Nothing about this surprised me, of course. I live on earth, so I’m well aware of people’s need to make sure the vibrate setting on their phone didn’t malfunction when someone messaged or tagged them in the 8 seconds since they last put their phone in their pocket.
What got my attention were the few amongst the cell-phone enthusiasts who were actually enthusing with their significant others.
Like, together.
I had never really noticed it before; marginal romantic bonding through the most personal of our personal devices. At first, I didn’t know how to feel about it and all kinds of questions ran through my head…
“Why can’t they just enjoy each other’s natural company?”
“Are they trying to justify a phone obsession with some shallow attempt at companionship?”
“Is this no different than watching television or going to a movie together?”
“Are they on to something?”
“How can someone be so terrible at driving something that doesn’t even have a f@$*!&# steering wheel???”
Ultimately, where I landed on my questions was that the streetcar driver thought he was using a paddle-boat and that looking at your cell phone with your loved one is not only a reasonable compromise, but a pretty good checkpoint for your general behavior.
If we’re going to be real, we need to acknowledge two things. First, we’re not always going to be excited or even notably intrigued by the presence of our romantic partners. It’s not about them; it’s about all of us. We’ve become virtuosos at breeding the simultaneous need for attention and distraction. Second, despite our romantic sensibilities, our most trustworthy sidekick in the adventures of constant arousal is now our cell phone.
Love it or hate it, that’s where many of us are.
So if I can’t convince people to drop the side-conversations, at least I can encourage them to not whisper at the table.
Next time you start sifting through your phone while ‘spending time’ with your partner – personal messages and emergencies aside – ask yourself, “Why wouldn’t I share what I’m doing right now?”
The answer should be a simple, “No reason.” If it is, then pull them in. If it isn’t, then put it away.
If we want the best from our intimate relationships and our intimate electronics, we should strive to find better ways for them to coexist. One way is to push ourselves to make personal electronics a little less personal and a little more inclusive. If we step back from the addiction and keep tabs, I think we’ll find that most of the time we use it around them, there’s a more productive way to use it with them.
So, as the hipster and her mutt trotted off the streetcar, I inhaled for the first time in 9 minutes, and exhaled a breath of nervous relief.
From looking around, it was evident that most of us are far too dependent on our cellphones – even when given explicit permission to be dependent on other dynamic, committed people. But by the time my stop would arrive, I was more likely to jump in front of the streetcar than I was to reform the imperfect human cargo it spastically freighted across Queen Street.
So what I did was exercise my gratitude.
I was grateful to know that while we may always be tied to our phones, we will always have the chance to turn that tie into a real bond. If we capitalize on that chance, maybe things will come full circle.
“Not great, but good enough for now”, I thought.
As I turned back to my book, I imagined the driver’s hiring report bearing that very same inscription…
#NOTABLE
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