Land lines were always expensive, especially before cellphones when that was all there was. College students often couldn't afford one of their own and it wasn

Land lines were always expensive, especially before cellphones when that was all there was. College students often couldn't afford one of their own and it wasn't really thought of as a dire necessity. Plus there were pay phones everywhere which were cheap and unlimited for local calls. Then local college sweethearts could call each other free from home or dorm usually on shared phones, with other callers often waiting for you to finish so they could use the phone next. You could make arrangements to meet later at a certain time & place and after you hung up, that was it. Not too easy to cancel after that when almost nobody had ever been in constant contact before, and so good sweethearts really concentrated on being there for each other. I would estimate that more of the time apart was spent thinking positively about your partner when you can't be in touch, and letting nothing stand in the way of your appointed meeting (same thing everybody was doing), compared to how there is so much noise in the way with your own phone on you at all times. People don't seem to think about their sweetheart as much when they can just call anywhere anytime. And it's quite common for each person to spend more time on the phone itself doing things other than talking to their partner with it. The type of strong relationships favored by the archaic limits on mobile communication & networking might be a thing of the forgotten past.