Growing up, I hated using the phone.
“Hullo??? HULLO??? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
Calling mezh-gorod (inter-city) was a sort of alchemy. It was complicated. You had to know the ropes. I remember my parents calling the operator to request a mezh-gorod connection. Then the operator would call them back, letting them know that “mezh-gorod” was ready.
Sometimes we went to a special place (called “Telegraph”, I believe) where you could send telegrams and also make long-distance calls. There were special little cabins, and the operator would call out “Call to Kharkov, go to Cabin 17!” And we would stuff ourselves into the tiny Cabin 17 and do our best to slide the door closed.
“HULLO? Mum? YES! IT IS! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
There was always an unspoken assumption that someone could be listening in on your call. A bored operator, perhaps. Or worse.
“This is not a telephone conversation” – code for sensitive stuff that was not for other people’s ears and could get someone in trouble.
When we lived in the Far East, we had a military phone at home. There was no dial tone, but an operator answered after you picked up the phone.
Iceberg-2.
To call my dad, all I had to do was pick-up the phone, hear "Iceberg-2" and say “Please connect me to Medical”. And then, “Can I speak to Major Zhxxxx, please.” I always felt so guilty if I had to get a hold of my dad over the phone, like I was taking up people’s valuable time that could be used for something better.
To call anywhere outside our immediate little army base, one had to ask to be connected to Iceberg 1. And then, depending on where the call needed to go, there would be a whole string of code names.
I remember my dad trying to get through to some far-flung hospital or another military base.
Iceberg 2. Iceberg 1. Piano. P’ero.
When we moved to Latvia in 1991, we didn’t set up a phone at all – didn’t have the money on extras like that. If I wanted to call my favorite cousin in Riga, I had to leave our apartment, walk about 2 minutes to a nearby dormitory/hostel and use their payphone. At that point, there was no disembodied operator, just a bunch of numbers to get through to Riga and then our relatives’ number. It would take forever to place the call because the line to Riga was always “busy”.
After coming to the US, using the phone became a whole other level of torture. I stutter, and my stuttering got so much worse with the stress of having to use a new language (even though I was fairly fluent, it was like my brain wasn’t wired for speaking English full time, resulting in embarrassing stuttering and stammering). It was even worse when trying to speak English over the phone. And I had to do it in the beginning – because my parents couldn’t do all those phone-calls with electric companies, and phone companies, and what not, when we were getting set up in our apartment.
And then there is this whole other thing about speaking to someone you can not see. No body language to help you.
The idea of cell phones turned me off. I did not want to be reached anywhere, any time. I did not want to have a cell phone as a leash. I ended up getting one in 2004 or 2005 – because my future husband and I needed to be able to speak with each other frequently, and we were going to do long-distance relationship thing for a few months while he was finishing up his PhD.
I didn’t get a smartphone until 2020 because I was happy with my little button phone. It did everything I needed it to do: call people and send and receive texts. Until it couldn’t…. the company discontinued supporting that type of phone, half of the texts weren’t going through. So, now I have joined the (nearly) rest of the world in owning a smartphone. I mainly use it to send texts and whatsapp messages. Sometimes, I use it to make calls. Sometimes, I use it to check email, listen to podcasts, or check on my favorite blogs. It’s fine. It’s a tool.
For most phone calls, I use our house internet-based phone.
I suppose I would use the smartphone more if I wasn't working from home or had to travel.
I still don’t like phones.
I also really don’t like video calls.
Because when I am on a phone with my mom, or aunt, or a friends, sometimes I like to fold a bit of laundry, or cut up some vegetables for a salad, or maybe even stretch out on our sofa in the dark. Video calls, instead of making me feel closer to the people I talk to, make me feel more removed. I also feel like I am more on “display” and need to present myself as favorably as possible (stressful!).
What do you prefer – phone calls or video calls? Or neither - and are perfectly content to be disconnected from everyone most of the time?
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