Phone a friend Day (Day 5)
I’ll be honest: receiving a phone call from the wrong person and at the wrong time can feel like being ambushed. I don’t particularly enjoy having the peace of my set-up disturbed by my phone conspicuously alerting me and everyone else in my vicinity that someone, somewhere requires my attention right this moment. A text message that I could get back to in my own time would suffice.
I held some version of this opinion until relatively recently.
Perhaps I am showing signs of ageing, but over the past year or so, I’ve started to appreciate phone calls as a medium of communication so much more. Growing up in a Nigerian household, phone calls were an ever present fixture in the ambience of my home. Each day would come with a new relative to greet on the phone (whether I remembered them or not) before passing the phone to the next person to complete the chain of greetings. When my grandparents were around, the number of phone calls would double as would the number of people I greeted with broken Yoruba. I had never really considered why the older generations were so fond of phone calls, but I feel like I’m slowly starting to see why.
Having left school and university in the past 5 years, there are people I haven’t seen for years who I had become accustomed to seeing every day without fail. Social media offers the illusion of proximity as it can feel like you know more about how people’s lives are going more than you actually do. A short message here and there and it feels like you are still “in touch”, but how much depth is there really to double tapping and fleeting messages? When I think back to my parents’ generation, there are many people back home that they keep in touch with, yes through WhatsApp but also by the constant phone calls. I think there is something about hearing the voice of someone you care about in real time that cannot be replicated by letters on a screen. I’m starting to realise that perhaps the depth of the phone call is not only about the conversation but also the intention behind it. There are so many convenient ways to communicate with each other and something about a phone call says ‘I want to focus on you’. My parents would always instruct me to call rather than text elders if I was asking for something and I am starting to understand the reasoning behind that sentiment now. I would say that it is a generational difference but there is a level of connection and respect that comes with asking for something verbally as opposed to through a message.
My uni housemate is notoriously bad at texting but I know that when I come to his mind, I’ll receive a phone call from him which I always cherish because I know he’s thought about me and has made the time to chop it up. In some ways I prefer it to texting, because again, it feels more intentional. I think back to times where I have been struggling and friends have called me to check in. The gesture to make time to speak to me in a busy day made me feel cared for.
I’ve noticed that as the conversation on the phone draws to the end with my mates and with elders, the call often ends with “thanks for calling”. There seems to be an implicit recognition of the fact that someone has taken the effort to make time for you and that is only something you can be grateful for. So take the time to call someone you love today.
Connect the dots…
Love,
ETP
