1-Sided Cell Phone Conversations

I spent part of the weekend listening to a stranger talk on their cell-phone.

We agree it is annoying; but I began to wonder why it IS annoying.

After all, I couldn’t really care at all about the (loud-mouthed and therefore rude) stranger, less about his unseen correspondent.

If it’s not about those two, then it must be about me. After all, there are only the three of us in the scene.

What is it IN ME that is irritated? Well, it can’t be my arms, legs or kidneys. It must be in my brain.

Something goes on that irritates my brain, my thought-process.

What can it be?

I am of the conclusion that we evolved with the spoken and heard word; reading and writing is a skill; speaking and listening is an attribute.

Hard-wired into our brains, through evolution, is the business of being part of a two-party conversation. Whether we are the speaker or the respondent, or just an eavesdropper, our brains expect to hear both sides of the conversation. It’s in our ears.

And when our brains don’t receive both sides of the conversation, our brain expresses irritation at being excluded from what we need in order to function normally.

Talk to Me !

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