My so called sex life
No. 7: Phones I was having a drink with a female friend the other night. Interrupting my fascinating diatribe (it was either on the evils of instant coffee, or people who always leave their phones switched off), she conspiratorially pointed out to me a couple of girls who were talking excitedly. "Watch that blonde one," she said. "She's telling the brunette about a guy she fancies." "How do you know?" "Girls only get that excited about two things. She's wearing really horrible trainers, so she's obviously not interested in shoes. So it must be a man." Fascinating, I thought. She was right, too; as I walked past them to get a drink, I heard a snippet of conversation. "Definitely, definitely not. There 's no way. I'm not interested and nor is he.Really? You think he is?" So does this mean that a guy I'd never met would be able to tell I was talking to my friend about somebody I was pursuing just by watching me from the other side of the room? It's immaterial, of course, because even if he could, he probably wouldn't care, whereas for my friend, this bit of detective work was the most riveting find imaginable. That may say more about the quality of conversation she was getting from me, but I can't see why: mobile telephony, and specifically the differences between the Geekia 9710 and the Geekia 8470 models, is a very interesting topic. Apparently, if you add together the digits of a phone's model number and multiply by the square root of the year and it comes out as a multiple of 3, that means you' ll be able to pick up signals from NASA on your built-in FM radio. Incredible. But it does throw into relief the importance of the visual in communication. I don't really feel like I can have a proper conversation with somebody over the phone, much less on MSN and least of all by text message. Opinions differ on the proportion of communication that is non-verbal, ranging from 55% to 93%. All seem agreed, though, that we convey less than half our meaning through words. It's pretty ridiculous only to be able to have half a conversation. You wouldn't try to chat to someone using only letters between a and m. Nor, I suspect, would you attempt a discussion without the other person's being there. And yet we have developed, and constantly use, myriad technologies for staying in touch with people we can't see. When we first leave home for university, we calm our parents' fears that they'll never see us again except perhaps at Christmas, and only then in exchange for a really good present, by promising to phone. We use phones to carry on long-distance relationships. Most bizarrely of all, some of us use online chat programmes to talk to people we see in college every day. Is it worth it? It's better than nothing, certainly. But certain things should not even be attempted. Serious discussions require a face-to-face exchange. For staying in touch, the phone will do to hear someone's news, but you'll never feel like you can actually gauge someone's state of mind from a phone-call; if you do, you'll often turn out to be wrong. Most importantly of all, nobody should ever, ever have phone sex. I suppose some people find the idea appealing. It's better, their argument might run, to at least pretend you're not just doing things for yourself. You need, they may argue, to carry on thinking of your other half in a sexual way even when you can't see them often, otherwise they become just a long-distance friend. It helps you, one could contend, to imagine that they' re actually there. Poppycock. Of all the things verbal communication can't do, sex tops the list. Isn't this obvious? There are few things more inherently ridiculous than someone describing what they're doing to you using a phone-line. "I'm touching the inside of your thigh." Hang on, I'll just reposition the phone cable between my legs. Yes, that's better. "I'm covering you all over in whipped cream." Aha, I think I have some low-fat yoghurt in the fridge. One second. Yes, there we are. Next? "I'm licking it off slowly." Hmm. All right, two ticks. Damn! There's a bit I can't reach. I don't bend over that far. Can I hop in the shower and call you back?
26th Feb 2004