Skip to main content

Without Phone

I definitely have nomophobia. J has called me a wall-hugger given my propensity to plug my phone to airport walls even though I have a phone charger that is fully charged. Nothing short of phobia explains the behavior. This is like having a Plan D as a contingency when the first three fail. It seems like this particular phobia is a manifestation of some other unresolved issues the person has

What causes nomophobia, then? Well, first and foremost, phones. Mobiles are connected to the internet, making them highly addictive instruments. But it’s also possible that nomophobia could be a symptom of another addiction or anxiety.

Other anxiety is likely where things originate for me. I am yet to get used to the idea that J is an independent woman living her own life and a phone call from her is not a crisis that I need to dive in and solve. The calls tend to be about rather mundane things like an air-fryer recipe she is getting ready to try and has a question, which nail color I think would work best for her outfit or some such. There has not been a precedent of the kind of phone call that I am on hot standby for. If there is something more substantive to discuss, she will pre-arrange for a time to talk - these patterns have been established for a while and my brain is somehow slow to catch-up. 

But there are other anxieties like leaving the phone behind at home and driving. Losing the phone entirely is a whole another level of trouble. One of my co-workers had his identity stolen when he lost his phone and it took about six months to have things resolved - hearing him tell the story would make anyone nomphobic.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha...
5 comments
Read more

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more