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Eh, I have a mom who I like. She knows I am busy with a full time job, a long commute, and two kids 3 and under...so she watches the clock and calls ME when she knows I'm driving to/from work. I have a hands-free phone holder thing. I actually like it! Otherwise, I will mean to call my mom and get overwhelmed with kids and dinner and bedtime and then forget to do it. Also, if she calls during my drive she knows I have at least 45 min to talk. I don't care where she is when I call her, and she frequently picks up when she's out running errands.
Eh, I have a mom who I like. She knows I am busy with a full time job, a long commute, and two kids 3 and under...so she watches the clock and calls ME when she knows I'm driving to/from work. I have a hands-free phone holder thing. I actually like it! Otherwise, I will mean to call my mom and get overwhelmed with kids and dinner and bedtime and then forget to do it. Also, if she calls during my drive she knows I have at least 45 min to talk. I don't care where she is when I call her, and she frequently picks up when she's out running errands.
Now this sounds like a normal relationship to me, one that's not running amok with feelings that are so easy to offend!
I feel like this - I have a phone, my friends and family have phones. We pay for them, they are for our convenience, and they can be a great way to stay in touch.
If you call me, and I can't take the call, I don't answer the phone, or I answer and say, "Sorry - can't talk now, can I call you later?" and then I do so. It's not that complicated.
If I call you and you don't answer, I don't assume you don't love me, I just assume you can't talk at the moment. The more emotionally stable people in my life see a missed call from me and will call me back when it's (gasp) CONVENIENT to them. And hopefully it's a good time for me to talk as well. If so, we have a nice two way conversation and I don't care whether either of us is driving, or sitting at home on the patio, or going through the car wash or whatever.
Of course, I try to call when I think someone won't be busy or inconvenienced. For instance, I don't call my oldest daughter after 9 pm because she goes to bed early. I don't call my youngest son before 11 am because he works till 4 am and sleeps till noon. Ya know, common sense.
I'll tell you something else. I don't generally leave voice mails on someone's cell phone (as opposed to business calls, when I will leave a voice mail). I don't figure people listen to voice mail often. But I will send them a text message if they don't answer. If I just wanted to catch up with them, I'll send a message like, "Iust wanted to talk," because I don't want them to think it's particularly important to call back. If it's an emergency, I say "URGENT, PLEASE CALL BACK" and I follow with a note like "GRANDDAD IN THE HOSPITAL," or "No one is sick, but I have to ask you something time sensitive."
What I don't like is when people leave a non message - like "Hey, call me." Hey, guess what - I see I have a missed call from you. I will call you back. But how bout a little heads' up - do I need to call you back right away? Can it wait till tonight? Tomorrow? Can I get some sort of hint of what it's about, if it's really "about" something? If you just say "call me," I'll do it - when I get around to it.
Just a pet peeve. It's not something I would make a big stink out of. But let's just say that if I get a message like that, I will definitely call them back at my convenience and feel no sense of urgency about it.
I don't have anyone in my life who calls acting as if something is an emergency when it's really not. Now THAT would really, really, really tick me off and I'd have to call their hand on that one.
I don't like getting calls from a car or a store or public places, unless there's an urgent need. The reason is that (1) it's dangerous for them to call from a car; they should be focused totally on the other cars and the road; (2) people are multi-tasking when calling me, so can't focus on speaking with me very well AND focus on their driving (even tho they think they can); (3) it strikes me that they are just bored; (4) they want to look important to other people, so they HAVE to be on the phone while at Target or in the grocery store checkout lane; or (5) they are one of those who can't stand to be alone.
When someone calls, I expect their undivided attention, if they want to chat. They called to focus on ME, right? If you are already focusing on shopping or driving, then you can't focus on me.
I also don't answer my cell phone while driving, usually. It's dangerous, and nothing is that important to me.
I've asked my grown kids not to call me when they're driving -- not because I take offense at it but because I dont think it's safe (regardless of whether they have a hands-free device or not). When talking on the phone, one's attention can not be 100% on the road -- and I'd hate for my phone discussion to end with the sound of a crash. They can call me when they're walking the dog, cooking dinner, feeding the horses or any other time.
And, yes, they still sometimes call, just to chat, when driving. At those times I tell them I love them but I cannot, and will not, talk while they're driving.
I don't like getting calls from a car or a store or public places, unless there's an urgent need. The reason is that (1) it's dangerous for them to call from a car; they should be focused totally on the other cars and the road; (2) people are multi-tasking when calling me, so can't focus on speaking with me very well AND focus on their driving (even tho they think they can); (3) it strikes me that they are just bored; (4) they want to look important to other people, so they HAVE to be on the phone while at Target or in the grocery store checkout lane; or (5) they are one of those who can't stand to be alone.
When someone calls, I expect their undivided attention, if they want to chat. They called to focus on ME, right? If you are already focusing on shopping or driving, then you can't focus on me.
I also don't answer my cell phone while driving, usually. It's dangerous, and nothing is that important to me.
While living in a different city, I had a friend I'd go to lunch with several times a month. Each time he'd put his cell phone down on the table. We'd place our orders and, wouldn't you know, his phone would ring. So most of our lunch time would be me sitting there eating and listening to him on the numerous phone calls he would receive! He'd say something like, "Oh, sorry, I really need to take this one" sometimes when the phone would ring. I tried to be patient and just eat my lunch. It seemed so rude at the time, but he didn't seem to see anything wrong with it.
Perhaps this is one of those times where he should have said to his callers, "Oh, sorry, It isn't convenient for me to talk now, I'm at lunch with Backintheville2", and just call them back later after we had said our good bye from lunch. Would that annoy anyone else?
I get calls all the time from people using car time to talk, it's only annoying when they must get off the phone mid-conversation because they have reached their destination. If they've got something like a doctor's appointment or other time sensitive task it's understandable but if they blow you off simply because they've arrived at Starbucks or the shopping mall they have prioritized your importance to them as less than that. Who needs those calls?
I think about communication styles now days with the advent of texting, and it's just bizarre how talking on the phone has been so demonized. I think it's because we are so distracted by our electronic devices now days, we think every time the device wants our attention, we have to drop everything and pick it up. Then, it gets to the point of "I don't talk on the phone, TEXT ONLY!"
Remember in the olden days before answering machines, if you called someone and they didn't answer, you just called back? And how it was nice to hear your loved one's voice on the phone? Or just talk about silly gossip with your friend across town? At holidays, calling grandchildren who live far away hearing "I love you grandma!"
Now days we move around at the speed of sound, there's no time to talk to those close to us? I have to type them a text and they can read the message when it's convenient to them? We so distracted by our devices, we pay more attention to them than people?
So - on the other thread, some people absolutely hate getting calls from people who are driving, or in the airport (this particular scenario was mentioned several times though I myself have literally never even noticed whether someone called me from either locale).
Some people seemed to feel slighted by these sorts of calls, while others couldn't understand why.
And some people seemed to feel slighted by calls made while driving, but then as they discussed it, it seemed that the issue was more about the TIMING of the calls rather than where the caller was when they made the call.
I both feel slighted and totally understand and am sympathetic to why this is happening. As with so many things in life its complicated and conflicted.
I get driving calls from friends who are mothers. I'm older and not. I am grateful that they are friends with this old lady and that they think to call me. Truly. I also know that they talk to other family and friends probably from home and other non driving times, so getting driving time calls sort of puts me at Team B friend. So I am being sort of fitted in and this makes me a little sad. The irritation comes when they want to talk for the length of the drive and the drive is long and I don't really feel like talking, and/or they want to talk talk talk and oh I'm here Bye! (this always happens)
So emotions are: happy, sad, irritated
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