4 ms·

I feel your first sentence is unnecessary and more a meme than a reasonable answer. Plus, people might consider NOT playing with your phone during dinner a rea

I feel your first sentence is unnecessary and more a meme than a reasonable answer. Plus, people might consider NOT playing with your phone during dinner a really delightful thing. (My wife would be proud of me mentioning this, not that I tend to be that polite most of the time..)

gaius 13y ago
You can play a game: everyone puts their phone in the middle of the table, the first person to pick theirs up during the meal pays the bill for the entire table (or split it if no-one does). There is another variant on this game that can be played with a goldfish bowl...
- philwelch 13y ago
  I'm glad no one I know plays this childish game, speaking as someone who is occasionally on call, lives under the conscious commitment to always pick up the phone when my wife calls, or maybe just likes to check the time every so often.
  - gaius 13y ago
    ... And check your Facebook, and Instagram your food, and reply some email that actually will wait until the next day but you want your boss to see that you're "working" after hours, and maybe a bit of Twitter... If you want to do all that, stay at home alone and do it on your PC. If you want to enjoy a meal in the company of friends, then try to live a bit more in the moment.
    - philwelch 13y ago
      Yeah the thing is, I don't do all of that shit, which is why I would resent going out with friends who would treat me like a child. But I actually do have to answer my phone sometimes.
      - gaius 13y ago
        Sulking because you don't want to join in a game is the epitome of childish behavior. You might want to think about that.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        anu_gupta 13y ago
        Why are you trolling, kid? Stop projecting your emotional state onto other people.
    - freehunter 13y ago
      So he lists a couple of pretty reasonable reasons to have a phone (emergency contact/replacement for a wristwatch) and you immediately assume he's using Instagram instead? There are words to describe the kind of person you're being right now.
      - gaius 13y ago
        Yes, there are also words to describe seeing someone make a general point on the Internet and piping up why you are so special and unique that it doesn't apply. It's a game, nothing more. Snowflake.
        aaronem 13y ago
        Touchy, touchy! There's no need for insults.
        philwelch 13y ago
        I don't think I'm unique and special. A hallmark of a healthy marriage is that you're willing to drop everything if your spouse genuinely needs you, and lots of people are married. If you're a parent, you're going to drop everything if your children genuinely need you. Lots of people are on call in their professional lives. To me, the biggest difference between childhood and adulthood is that adults have real responsibilities that are more important than silly games.
  - GrinningFool 13y ago
    It's possible that's all you use your phone for at the table, but if you take a step back and observe, is that really all you use it for? Do you look at that incoming email that isn't from the on-call address? Do you just check for new messages even when nobody is calling? Do you look at your twitter feed? Facebook? Just a quick check onto a favorite web site? Tap out replies to anything except on-call or your wife? It could be that you're the exception - maybe you do only respond when you hear the special notification sound for your wife or the on-call originating address. I'm dubious - but that's colored by my own experience. I thought much the same of myself until I actually stopped and paid attention to what I was doing with my phone when around others.
    - philwelch 13y ago
      When I'm on call all my pages come in over SMS so I'm generally only responding to alert sounds and only doing anything about it if it came from the pager gateway or my wife. Aside from phone and SMS I have all other notification sounds turned off. Unless it's my wife or a page I wouldn't even unlock the phone if I was genuinely spending time with people. The current time is on the lock screen so there's that. A lot of times though, in a lunch-with-coworkers situation, we just run out of things to talk about and check our phones sometimes and that's okay.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
aaronem 13y ago
Of course it's unnecessary; you may note that I called it a cavil, and a cavil is always unnecessary, which is part of what makes it a cavil. But it's to the point and sort of funny, which is why I left it in. As for the rest, of course it's rude to be "playing with your phone" during dinner, and while it's sometimes necessary to initiate or answer some communication, to leave the table before doing so is only polite. But rudeness in response to rudeness is rudeness nonetheless, and justified only in the face of extreme provocation; such a minor impoliteness as the one we're discussing is far more pleasantly and effectively dissuaded by a polite response than a rude one -- something which, it seems to me, "I will disallow anyone..." evinces a certain failure to grasp.

gaius 13y ago

You can play a game: everyone puts their phone in the middle of the table, the first person to pick theirs up during the meal pays the bill for the entire table (or split it if no-one does). There is another variant on this game that can be played with a goldfish bowl...

philwelch 13y ago
I'm glad no one I know plays this childish game, speaking as someone who is occasionally on call, lives under the conscious commitment to always pick up the phone when my wife calls, or maybe just likes to check the time every so often.
- gaius 13y ago
  ... And check your Facebook, and Instagram your food, and reply some email that actually will wait until the next day but you want your boss to see that you're "working" after hours, and maybe a bit of Twitter... If you want to do all that, stay at home alone and do it on your PC. If you want to enjoy a meal in the company of friends, then try to live a bit more in the moment.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    Yeah the thing is, I don't do all of that shit, which is why I would resent going out with friends who would treat me like a child. But I actually do have to answer my phone sometimes.
    - gaius 13y ago
      Sulking because you don't want to join in a game is the epitome of childish behavior. You might want to think about that.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - anu_gupta 13y ago
        Why are you trolling, kid? Stop projecting your emotional state onto other people.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    So he lists a couple of pretty reasonable reasons to have a phone (emergency contact/replacement for a wristwatch) and you immediately assume he's using Instagram instead? There are words to describe the kind of person you're being right now.
    - gaius 13y ago
      Yes, there are also words to describe seeing someone make a general point on the Internet and piping up why you are so special and unique that it doesn't apply. It's a game, nothing more. Snowflake.
      - aaronem 13y ago
        Touchy, touchy! There's no need for insults.
      - philwelch 13y ago
        I don't think I'm unique and special. A hallmark of a healthy marriage is that you're willing to drop everything if your spouse genuinely needs you, and lots of people are married. If you're a parent, you're going to drop everything if your children genuinely need you. Lots of people are on call in their professional lives. To me, the biggest difference between childhood and adulthood is that adults have real responsibilities that are more important than silly games.
- GrinningFool 13y ago
  It's possible that's all you use your phone for at the table, but if you take a step back and observe, is that really all you use it for? Do you look at that incoming email that isn't from the on-call address? Do you just check for new messages even when nobody is calling? Do you look at your twitter feed? Facebook? Just a quick check onto a favorite web site? Tap out replies to anything except on-call or your wife? It could be that you're the exception - maybe you do only respond when you hear the special notification sound for your wife or the on-call originating address. I'm dubious - but that's colored by my own experience. I thought much the same of myself until I actually stopped and paid attention to what I was doing with my phone when around others.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    When I'm on call all my pages come in over SMS so I'm generally only responding to alert sounds and only doing anything about it if it came from the pager gateway or my wife. Aside from phone and SMS I have all other notification sounds turned off. Unless it's my wife or a page I wouldn't even unlock the phone if I was genuinely spending time with people. The current time is on the lock screen so there's that. A lot of times though, in a lunch-with-coworkers situation, we just run out of things to talk about and check our phones sometimes and that's okay.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

aaronem 13y ago

Of course it's unnecessary; you may note that I called it a cavil, and a cavil is always unnecessary, which is part of what makes it a cavil. But it's to the point and sort of funny, which is why I left it in. As for the rest, of course it's rude to be "playing with your phone" during dinner, and while it's sometimes necessary to initiate or answer some communication, to leave the table before doing so is only polite. But rudeness in response to rudeness is rudeness nonetheless, and justified only in the face of extreme provocation; such a minor impoliteness as the one we're discussing is far more pleasantly and effectively dissuaded by a polite response than a rude one -- something which, it seems to me, "I will disallow anyone..." evinces a certain failure to grasp.