Dear Phone, I Love You

Dear Phone:

I love you. I mean, not in that Joaquin Phoenix-falling-in-love-with-his-operating-system way. But maybe in the I’d-probably-hug-you-if-I-hadn’t-seen-you-in-a-few-weeks-and-we-finally-got-together-for-coffee kind of way. I mean, I guess I do hold you near me with my pants every day, when you think about it, but that’s not really intentional. My pants pocket is just the most functional place to carry you and pants are fairly snug-fitting these days.

Anyway, I love you. It’s not something I think about a lot, like I do with my girlfriend—but the evidence is pretty significant when you add it up, I guess. Maybe I should just say, “I apparently love you,” according to all these facts.

Like, I must love you more than going to sleep at a decent hour some nights. And I apparently love you more than coffee, because some mornings I look at you before I even drink coffee. And you know what, that’s a pretty big deal, because I LOVE coffee.

And it seems I love you more than doing a lot of things correctly: concentrating fully on a conversation with a friend, for example. Basically I keep you in my pocket out of respect to my friend when we meet at a restaurant or coffee shop, and I think I’m doing pretty good, and then you buzz, and then you buzz again, and suddenly I’m not listening to my friend talk—I’m thinking about the buzzing in my pants. I tell myself I’m committed to the conversation, but then you buzz and I realize if I was really committed, I’d put you on Airplane Mode before I sat down with my friend.

I do not, however, love you more than concentrating fully on what I’m doing in an airport restroom stall. I’ve been in a stall adjacent to a few people who DO love their phones that much, or at least don’t mind having serious business conversations amidst a chorus of high-pressure toilets flushing. Sorry, just not my thing. If you like being out of the pocket in airport restrooms, maybe you should find someone else.

Are you giving me brain cancer, by the way? OK, cool. There’s a rumor going around, but if you say so, it’s cool.

I evidently also love you more than I love walking at a respectable velocity and/or predictable trajectory sometimes. Sorry, everybody else on the sidewalk, I just HAD TO respond to a text message/check Instagram/google what the members of Limp Bizkit have been up to since 2001 right now.

Phone, I miss you when you’re not here. Not in a romantic way, more like a “shit, where did I leave my wallet?” way. Are you more important than my wallet? I don’t know if I’d go that far. Just as important? OK, maybe I’ll give you that one.

I love you more than stillness, or letting my mind wander until it comes up with a good idea for something, or even a bad idea. I love you more than using a pen and paper to write things down, and you’re definitely easier to take along than my real camera (but you don’t take quite as nice of photos). I suppose I also love being able to look at restaurant reviews in seconds more than trying out a bunch of hit-or-miss joints. And I guess I love you more than asking people for directions, and the fact that you can access basically all music recorded during the 20th and 21st centuries.

Jeez, phone, you’ve really changed my life. Do you ever wonder what kind of person you’re turning me into? Whether you’re making me kind of an asshole? Oh, you wouldn’t say that, necessarily? What would you say? Oh, OK, you think we’re in a “codependent relationship”? I don’t even know what to say to that.

I wish I knew how to quit you. No, I really mean that.

—Brendan