Thither write, my queen,

And with mine eyes,

I’ll keep the words you send,

Though ink be made of gall.

— Shakespeare,

Cymbiline, I,1

Send those words and I will take them in, drink them, consume them, and then I will send them back to you. But I will not use ink, rather text messenger, for we are living in modern times now. Oh how wonderful it is to be able to send and receive words faster than you can say text, e-mail, WattsApp or Instagram.

That’s right, the telephone has added a new dimension to the way humans communicate. Gone are the days of the talking drum, carrier pigeons, letters, telegrams or postcards. Now all that and more can be done on the phone.

Then add the ability to access information such as news, sports, weather, location and people’s business, and the phone is a godsend. All this has taken people’s behaviour to a new level, and it’s often not pleasant, as that instrument of mass information has turned some people into rude antisocial beings.

Many people have fallen in love with their phones and like many love stories, it often results in anguish, passion, desire, obsession, heartbreak and disaster. I’m not talking about the great romances of yesteryear, the kind that poems and books chronicled, but of the love affair that so many people have with their phones.

Telephone love, that’s what we’ll dial up today, right after these responses to ‘Wrecked relationships’.

Hi Tony,

Good relationships are built on love, friendship, respect and trust. But for good relationships to continue successfully, there must be sensitivity on the part of both parties. They must be alert and considerate of each other’s feelings and act positively to those feelings. But sensitivity is a double-edged sword where one or both parties are easily hurt or offended. “Dem thin skin,” as we say. But who said relationships were easy? It is a work in constant progress and needs continuous nurturing.

Raymond

Tony,

Your article made me dig up this quote from an unknown author: “Free yourself from negative people, spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and like-minded. Relationships should help you, not hurt you. Surround yourself with people who reflect the person you want to be. Choose friends who you are proud to know, people you admire, who like and respect you; people who make your day a little brighter simply by being in it. Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.”

Carmen

When our very own J C Lodge wrote and sang her hit song Telephone Love many years ago, she had no idea how real, relevant and prophetic her words would be. Back then she was referring to people who were in love and spent a great deal of time on the phone professing this love to each other.

How could she have known that many people would actually fall in love with the very instrument that they were using to convey their lyrical messages? But it was bound to happen. After all, if you spend so much time with something close to your mouth, your ears, your face, breathing into it, smelling it, whispering in it, caressing it, fondling it, then you’re bound to fall in love with it.

Now the phone is not just for talking anymore, but has opened up a new dimension for many people who just can’t seem to put down that instrument, even for a second. It was American actor Charlton Heston who spoke the now famous words when he defended his rights to bear arms, “You will have to pry my gun from my cold dead hands.”

Those same words could be applied to some phone owners, just change the word gun to phone. Dem nah give it up! No wonder a reader wrote that his wife was having an affair with her Samsung Galaxy. “I tell you, I wish that I was her phone, for she caresses it, puts it close to her mouth, breathes heavily into it, gazes longingly at it for hours, and reaches across me in the mornings to get it.”

That sounds like love to me, and I can understand why that man feels slighted by his wife as she elevates her phone to number one and him to number two. He is not alone. There are many people who are having an affair with their phone right now, and come hell or high water, there is no force on Earth that can mash it up….except a loss of Wi-Fi.

But even if people are in love with their phones, for Heaven’s sake, have some decency about it — get a room. There should be at least some decorum, some etiquette, when it comes to intimacy with their cold, hard instrument of satisfaction.

For instance, phones should not be used when people are dining as it’s just plain rude. And yet we see it all the time. People sit down to dinner at home or at a restaurant and either one, or perhaps both parties are carrying on with their phones. They’re having their affair right there in public under the very nose of their partner. Maybe they’re talking, texting, googling, WattsApping, Instagramming or e-mailing, but they are buried in the amorous embrace of the phone. It’s telephone love.

If they do happen to talk into the phone, it’s often at the decibel level of a screaming banshee or a shouting army drill sergeant. I thought lovers spoke in soft dulcet tones. Not so telephone lovers, as the world shall hear their words…for they are so important.

Isn’t it funny or ironic that people will whisper into a landline phone, yet shout at the top of their lungs into a cellphone? Even in the banks while doing transactions they’re on their phones. Banks should start to charge a phone tax, then we’d see a reduction of cellphone usage there.

Restaurants and banks are prime examples, but people even take their lovers, make that phones, to church. They text, tweet, Google and Facebook right throughout the entire sermon, and then leave church feeling spiritually fulfilled. I’m being ironic, of course, as their only focus was on their lover, their phone.

I often wonder why people even bother to go to the movies if they have no intention to watch what’s on the big screen. When I go to Carib Cinema I want to see the movie, so I turn off my phone. Not so with many people who either yak away through the movie, or have their phone screens shining brightly in your face, as their heads are buried in whatever’s going on in that small screen. Why come to the movies then? Stay home and make love to the phone.

Sadly, this has resulted in altercations and tragedy, as in the USA a man was shot and killed because he was texting in a movie theatre and a patron got annoyed by his action. Telephone love can be deadly.

Telephone love can be deadly here too, as many relationships have ended in tragedy because one party accessed the other’s phone and saw what they should not see. “Who sent you this text, who is Valerie, why she send you love emoji?”

In other cases, miscreants, vagabonds, thieves will wrest lovers from the hands of other people with deadly results, as they will shoot, stab or bash someone over the head just to get that phone. No phone should be worth a person’s life, but telephone love can be disastrous.

Many people have now found true love, if not with another person, but with their phone. They walk the streets engrossed in it, oblivious to their surroundings; they drive with it glued to their ears, holding up traffic; they take it into the toilet, the shower, the bed; and don’t be surprised if some people answer their phones while making love, or hurry up and finish so that they can answer it.. “I have to take this call, I have to take it.”

Telephone love is consuming and many people cannot exist without it. They’re always turned on by their phone, and the phone is never turned off. Look at what we have become — besotted with the phone. It’s an opiate, a drug, an obsession, an addiction. There is no cure, except a loss of Wi-Fi.

More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: Courtesy is one thing, but stupidity on the roads can lead to tragedy. While I was driving down Old Hope Road, a lady stopped her car in the right lane beside the dividing median of the busy two-lane road. I thought that she had car trouble and stalled. Little did I know that she had actually stopped to let a small child cross the busy road. As I passed her in my left lane, the little boy darted from the median, in front of her car and across my path. He ran like Bolt, and it was only a miracle that I didn’t knock him down. No one could see him coming, as her car blocked all vision. A passing bike almost hit him too. Motorists, do not stop to let people cross busy roads, unless it’s at marked crossing. Your good intentions could end in tragedy.