Phone and Text Etiquette - Your Opinion?

[Cin]

I don't do long texting or face time, I might on very rare occasions that haven't presented themselves yet and for reasons I don't know of, but for now...NO.

As far as answering a persistent caller or taking a call when I am otherwise engaged, that will never happen.

The phone is supposed to be a convenience not an obligation I have to other people. The only person I am obligated to is my wife and for her I will walk through fire to answer her calls.

But as far as everybody else is concerned, my life is my own and I share it when I choose.

And just like I did with a land line, I will answer when I feel like it, return calls when I feel like it and turn the phone off whenever I want. Unless it's an emergency or a friend or family member needs me for some kind of support, I talk on my time.

I control how I spend my free time. Hopefully the time I choose to spend socializing will match with others, but I am not going to give up my time or inconvenience others at functions, movies, whatever, to take phone calls. It's just rude. It's rude to the people I am with and rude to the people forced through no fault of their own to share space with me.

I wish other people would stop talking everywhere out in public all the time. It's incredibly annoying to not even be able to take a piss in silence. I have to hear someone in the bathroom stall next to me having some ridiculous conversation.

I mean it's a sad state of affairs if people are so busy they can't go grocery shopping or out to eat or take a piss in a public restroom without talking on their cell phone. It's really weird and more than a little obsessive. I long for the days when only people suffering with a mental illness talked out loud everywhere in public. And for them I had great compassion. For people so obsessed with social media and staying connected they have lost all sense of public decorum, not so much.