A friend messaged me the other day. I saw it. I didn’t reply. A week later, I finally responded with the classic: Sorry for the late reply, just got to this.
She called me out. You didn’t just get to this, she said. I saw the double ticks.
Damn. She was right. I’d opened it. I’d registered it. But I’d also shelved it. It needed a proper reply, and at that moment, I wasn’t equipped.
Maybe it got lost between revisiting pictures from 2016 and the reminder I set to cancel my Nibble app 7-day trial on day 6. Maybe I got a call? Perhaps I’d wanted to sink back into that Substack article about reclaiming attention, ironically while still on social media. Maybe I was working one of the four jobs I need to survive under capitalism’s boot heel. Maybe I was doing nothing?
Does free time now equal availability?
I get a ping from the family group chat, which doubles as an IT helpdesk for my mum. My best friend just FaceTimed me about a White Lotus episode, and another left a voice note crying about a possible diagnosis. All this, lodged between videos of cats and genocide.
The boundaries between reception and response have collapsed.
this a thousand times. IDK when people decided to not use the voicemail anymore.
But to be honest I make it more radical and not even return all calls. because. priority 1 - call, not answered but with a voicemail
priority 2 - unanswered call but a message sent afterwards.
priority 3 - message only.
an unanswered call on my side and no further information is for me simply to forget about it.
Voicemail is annoying. Please never leave me a voicemail. Just text me.
appearently when people call they do no like to text. because they have no hands free or whatever
so voicemail is the better option than simply be pissed because i never called back.