And a Camera Lens
Jun. 12th, 2008 02:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mhuzzellIra Glass once did a radio story describing how different being on the phone is to having a normal conversation, face-to-face. How it feels more distant, yet somehow more intimate. Perhaps it's because, though you miss out on the body language, you are, at the same time, not distracted by their body language either. You are attuned to the minute details of the other person's voice, the rasps and tremeloes. It's all there in the voice, anyway, every shred of emotion, and those long silences might even say more without the downcast eyes or fidgeting hands, only the tempo of breath from which to conclude.
Which I suppose is why listening to one end of someone else's phone conversation feels so voyeuristic. It's also why I hate talking on the phone in public, except for official business-type stuff. Or, really, having anyone listen in on me talking on the phone. We become so different. I am aware that my voice and my accent change when I'm on the phone, for instance, but I've no idea by how much. It probably depends who I'm talking to. A girl in my dorm at school used to go into a heavy Wisconsin (sorry, "Wiscaaahnsin") accent when she spoke to her family, though her speech was usually fairly Standard American.
So there's that. But then there's the other ear, the one in the headset. It always is a headset for me these days, or almost always. I hate talking on the phone unless I have to, but with some close friends and nearly all of my family across the Atlantic, I pretty much have to. Transatlantic phone calls being generally expensive, I use Skype. The trouble is, that means it's always me who has to call them. I think it's the very intimacy of phone conversation that makes their rejection so damning. To reach someone, only for them to have to put off the call 'til another time. Or to try to phone several people, and not manage to reach any of them. Or, worse, their fucking answering machines. I've always hated answering machines (and what good are they now, anyway, if people can't phone me back? Stevie Fucking Wonder songs?), and with the time difference I always seem to be phoning people at inconvenient times.
So, yeah, there's that other ear, listening more closely to that other person's voice than anytime else. What's going on there? What happens then? And why does it make me so uncomfortable?
Which I suppose is why listening to one end of someone else's phone conversation feels so voyeuristic. It's also why I hate talking on the phone in public, except for official business-type stuff. Or, really, having anyone listen in on me talking on the phone. We become so different. I am aware that my voice and my accent change when I'm on the phone, for instance, but I've no idea by how much. It probably depends who I'm talking to. A girl in my dorm at school used to go into a heavy Wisconsin (sorry, "Wiscaaahnsin") accent when she spoke to her family, though her speech was usually fairly Standard American.
So there's that. But then there's the other ear, the one in the headset. It always is a headset for me these days, or almost always. I hate talking on the phone unless I have to, but with some close friends and nearly all of my family across the Atlantic, I pretty much have to. Transatlantic phone calls being generally expensive, I use Skype. The trouble is, that means it's always me who has to call them. I think it's the very intimacy of phone conversation that makes their rejection so damning. To reach someone, only for them to have to put off the call 'til another time. Or to try to phone several people, and not manage to reach any of them. Or, worse, their fucking answering machines. I've always hated answering machines (and what good are they now, anyway, if people can't phone me back? Stevie Fucking Wonder songs?), and with the time difference I always seem to be phoning people at inconvenient times.
So, yeah, there's that other ear, listening more closely to that other person's voice than anytime else. What's going on there? What happens then? And why does it make me so uncomfortable?
