12:50 a.m. and Counting

A trend: Recently I received two calls, on different nights and from different men, at just about 10 minutes before one a.m. This seems evidence to me of two American problems - cell phone culture, which allows people to do all kinds of rude things in the name of reaching out and touching their neighbors, and the hell of dating. Oh, and drinking. Make that three American problems. Allow some backstory/overview here:

I should say that I’ve never “gotten” a boyfriend through dating - I’ve always spent time with the person some other way, and when we realized we enjoyed talking, spending time together began to include dinner and movies and so on. Anytime an appointment was made with scant reason to back it up (a fifteen minute chat in a bar, say), it was damn nearly a waste of time. So, dating: the weirdness of setting up what amounts to appointments, more or less, with people you barely know who might already want to see you naked.

The cell-phone part of this: a lot of us would agree that cell phone chat is the cigarette prop, the Something to Do With Your Hands, of our time. Many people don’t seem to want to buck up and read a book, call up a daydream, or understand that they’re not that important. (I realize that calls made from home, which the following calls surely were, might not qualify as cell-phone problems, but the cell thing has change the way people use phones, period.) 

So, do many people find calling in the wee hours appropriate? Or do I just attract the presumptuous sort?

My guy friends think it’s all about trying to get laid (”They want you,” “A booty call!” My friend Rob: “Has he seen you naked? If he hasn’t already seen you naked, it’s not okay.” )

Drinking is surely a factor - at least one of them sounded drunk. I didn’t answer that call. We met for the second time about six hours earlier at a local jazz bar, and I decided to, in keeping with this doing things I don’t normally do thing, give him my number. I just thought he’d be fun to know, probably. We had a fun chat for the second time in a few months, exchanged cards, and set off for different scenes, me a house party and him a businessy get-together. The text message arrived within an hour or so: How’s the party? Okay, now that would be cute if it stopped there for the night. A voicemail was left about an hour later, trying to get me to stop at the restaurant/bar where he was having drinks with other lawyers. I didn’t get either of these messages until after the fact; I left my phone in my coat pocke. So there was a pile-up effect to his messages that made me uncomfortable.

Then the call after I arrived home and was getting ready for bed, at 12:50 a.m. He sounded, on the message,  a bit slurry; he invited me to do something with him the next afternoon. The next day I sent a text. I figured some feedback might be the right thing to do.

The call from the other guy, which actually happened first, came about after hanging out a few times, but also after not having talked for three weeks.

The phone rings. I look at my watch. It’s 12:48 a.m. I pick up. Being the about-town person that I am, I’m curled up on my couch, watching Elf (this was Christmas week, after all).

I pick up; I don’t recognize the voice. He identifies himself. Me: “What time is it?” He may have sounded sheepish. “1.” A pause. “Is this an appropriate time to call me?” No answer. Me: “I’ll be around tomorrow if you want to call then.” Click. He hasn’t called again. 

It’s funny. He has performed in a unique, ironic-cover band, and the cd has been part of my home soundtrack for a few weeks. When listening to the band’s version of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love”, and his plaintive-in-an-ironic-way vocals on it, I can’t help smiling. The phone is not his friend.

This entry was posted on 28. January 2009 at 22:33 and is filed under Sugar Plums Dancing In My Head. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.