I grew up on landlines. Numbers scribbled on walls as I frantically called grandparents, church friends, and cousins, my legs dangling from the kitchen counter while the coiled cord wrapped around my plush fingers. I liked to watch as my fingertips go white. My social circle expanded to the limits of my memory, to however many digits of phone numbers it could hold. Even now, my password for every website contains the last four digits of my neighbor’s aunt’s number. She had a pool we liked to use.
When I unwrapped the new iPhone 13 on Christmas Day during eighth grade, a wave of nausea washed over me. I held Pandora’s box, the forbidden fruit; my life was going to change— before the phone, and after. The vessel, white with a sparkly case, would open a new world of connection. No more sleepovers planned over email; I would be on group chats.
Despite my reaction, I quickly discovered it had little use. Because where texts were clunky, calling felt fluid— an effect only possible when words are carried by the voice of someone you love. I liked landlines and letters. I hated Snapchat. I still do. I rarely answer texts; it’s a skill I feel like I waited too long to learn. So I’m an expert at calls. This is a love letter to my love language, as well as a note of caution on constant connection.
Phone calls are best enjoyed in bathtubs or on front porch steps – anywhere a beautiful French woman might take a smoke break. You can think of taking a call as its equivalent, with that same calming, addictive effect. That’s why our dads wander with AirPods on vacation, and why I can walk for miles.
There’s a way it goes: a text, maybe “Wait, let me just call you,” or simply “Call me,” if it’s urgent. I like when someone calls me blind, like a pop quiz on the art of conversation. Take these pop calls in a robe, in bed. Put rollers in your hair, like you’re in a movie from the nineties. Paint your nails.
We analyze the behavior of girls we’ve known, pulling at details of their upbringing and comparing them to distant characters in our lives. Compare and contrast. We meander through reflection. We carry the weight of college admissions and family pressures together, connected by a line we never ignore. We talk about boys in lunchrooms. Things that feel insignificant, things that weren’t funny until now, things you never thought you’d tell anyone.
My best friends and I prefer fights over the phone. It’s easier to say what you mean with the comforting glow of that red button. It’s an exit sign like the seat ejector from cartoon cars. I like an out, and I like a few miles between my truest words and my friends’ quick tongues.
There’s a time-altering shift that happens when you pick up a call. Hours slip away. Conversations become so mindless you won’t recall them the next day. Your bubble bath goes cold. The nail polish starts to burn at the cuticle because time is eating at you and the homework is left unfinished. A panic seeps in from foreign places as you begin to race the clock— you’ve been on the phone for 45 minutes… 3 hours. Calls become overwhelming as you switch from line to line, balancing different forms of teenage angst and undiagnosed mental illness. Half the time I’m not sure why I picked up, and the faceless voice on the other end doesn’t know why they called.
I’ve become a secretary from the eighties with hair blonder than my own and a teal pantsuit. I juggle the needs of those around me. I step out of family dinners. I don’t listen to music in the car. I can’t stop picking up.
I don’t run out of things to say, ever, and frankly I rarely talk about myself. After I say hello, say “I’ve been good! Yes, last night was fun!” I quickly become a needless entity, a reflection of someone else’s mind. I’m good at pulling at loose strings, listening to others unravel. It’s like breaking in a game of pool. After the balls spread in a sporadic pattern, I stroke the rambling of confessions and secret controversies into pockets. I’m a great shot. I say what they’ve been trying to say for the last twenty minutes. I’m told, “You get me.” I give great advice.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s healthy— the way phone calls facilitate a downpour of detail, and the habit to share everything. I can barely be alone anymore. It’s a full-time job, really. Calling your friends feels so instinctive— to reach for the phone, to spill every detail of what’s happened since you last spoke thirty minutes ago.
But unfortunately, landlines are etched into me, and I’ve been shaped around the love of my friends’ voices. I worry I have become too emotionally dependent, and I’m scared for the day when I have nobody left to call. I’m scared of going to college and leaving them. I can’t be alone, but talking on the phone means I never am. Like everything good, it comes at a cost.
Call me!
Edited by Bethany Chern
