April 7, 2004
Here's a new idea for a cell phone: Include all of the fancy features — the cameras, the calculators, voice memos and happy little musical ringers — but take away any ability to contact the outside world. That's right — no text messages, and most of all, no two-way communication.
Cell phones (and even the old-fashioned land-line phones) are great for moving relationships to new and deeper levels. Those free nights and weekends can come in handy many times. But there's another relationship-booster people often neglect — the ability to miss someone.
Don't get me wrong — I'm not a Luddite who hates new forms of communication. But what people seem to forget is the value of being able to miss someone.
I was watching the third Back to the Future movie the other day, and in the movie Doc Brown marries the woman of his dreams after meeting her just a few times. It made sense in context, because the kind of interactions he had with her in the movie would be nearly impossible today.
The movie took place in the Old West — there were no cell phones, e-mail, instant messages, or other devices that seem to throw a monkey wrench into modern-day relationships. Brown met his wife-to-be, Clara, only when he made the effort to meet her in person. Every time they parted there was no other way for them to get in touch, save for somebody actually getting on a horse and going out to where the other person lives. They had to savor every moment together and truly missed each other when they were apart.
In Cold Mountain, Ada admitted that not many words passed between her and her lover-turned soldier, Inman, but those few words were enough to keep them pining for each other over their three-year separation. Inman was probably thanking his lucky stars that cell phones didn't exist — he got lucky almost the second he saw her again. Guess three years will do that.
Today, when your girlfriend goes away, it's not really possible to miss her. Cell phones don't give anybody the chance anymore. You can miss the sight of her, but you're rarely out of reach of her voice.
At the airport, people will walk through a metal detector and call their significant others, whom they can still see waving at them on the other side of the glass. Even a person who has a husband or wife fighting in Iraq can still talk to him or her a couple of times a week via phone or e-mail. And if a couple lives in the same country — heck even the same town — the two probably talk on the phone several times a day. More if they both have instant messaging. What was once considered a lifetime's worth of contact with another person can be had in just a few months.
Maybe it's time to shelve the cell phones, e-mail and instant messaging and really start missing people. I left a voice-memo on my cell phone telling myself to do just that.
The genXchange column appears every other Wednesday. Today's writer is Wasim Ahmad, a copy editor for the Press & Sun-Bulletin. E-mail him at wahmad@pressconnects.com.
© 2004 Press & Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, N.Y.