for those of you who hate cell phones (I dont use mine much either, but if someone leaves me a message I have the courtesy to return their call, within a day or so)
so forget about the use of the term ‘cellphone’…if someone leaves you a message, do you feel its rude to refuse to return calls, (imagine old fashioned land line, telegraph, letter, whatever, just somehow reply to their message)
my mom hates cell phones,she only carries one for emergencies, but if someone leaves her a message, she will return the call within a day or two, on her home landline.
maybe i should have left out the use of the detail of ‘cellphone’…it doesnt have to do with what type of phone it is, it has to do with simply acknowledging and returning a call within a reasonable (not immediate, not drop everything, just reasonable within a couple days, or three)
Yes, I feel it’s rude not to return calls. There are other ways to return calls these days, for most people they at least have email. So you hate to talk on the phone, don’t have texting, blah blah, I bet there’s an email account in there somewhere. My parents don’t use their cell, it’s not usually on unless they’re on the road, and they certainly don’t have texting. If I miss a call from Mom but don’t feel like calling back, or know they’re on the road and the cell ringing will just cause confusion if it’s even on (and Og forbid one of them driving try to answer it!), I just email her back. I know she’ll get it when they arrive at the other house.
My parents are the only ones this really comes up with, and at least we know we’re responsive enough with at least email. My Brother-in-law, on the other hand, is just a useless nit. He doesn’t even return calls to my parents when they’re trying to get game times and locations for my nephew’s volleyball tournaments. A powerplay? Not a chance. He’s just a dumbshit. Unfortunately, his son is learning from him, so when grandparents try to bypass BIL and just contact the volleyball player himself, they get pretty much the same response. Crickets. Yes, it’s a pain to call Grandma because once you call she wants to have a conversation, but you can also just frickin email her the damn schedule. Ugh.
I’ll call some people back right away. For other people, I generally won’t call them back unless they need information. There are a lot of people who want to talk to me, but I don’t necessarily want to talk to them.
And my reply was for my landline. I never answer my cell phone, unless I’m expecting a call on it. The cell is for emergencies, or for when I’m out of town. I find it very hard to understand people on a cell.
My inlaws used to call me up, leave a message, and want to be called back. After a while, I figured out that they basically just wanted to criticize me in some way. Oh, they weren’t doing it consciously…but every time I called them, I got an earful about how they felt that I was doing a poor job as a wife, or how I should be more sociable, or how it was very rude of me not to come to a family gathering (where everyone smoked and I have lung problems), whatever. So I quit calling them back, and my quality of life improved dramatically. Like I said, they weren’t doing this on purpose, but I didn’t need that negativity in my life, and I certainly didn’t need to spend 30 to 90 minutes each day to hear it. So I started letting the machine pick up the calls.
Seadragon,…yea there are diferent modes of cominication so if a person has some type of cellphone aversion, there are landlines, texts, skype,email,letter,heck telegraph or freakin smoke signals…:rolleyes: Although if someine has that strong an aversion to using their cellphone I dont understand why they want to pay all that money for one.
I have a cell phone in case I have an emergency. Maybe my car broke down. Maybe I’m having a low blood sugar incident. There are no public phones any more, or at least, I don’t see them.
However, I don’t text. Nor do I drive while talking on the cell.
I quit answering the phone because of the election stuff and have no intention of going back to answering every call evah…
Sometimes it will take days for me to even realize that anyone has called because my phone is left in the truck and I don’t realize it or the battery has gone dead and I don’t realize it.
There are people who call me ‘just to talk’ and they talk for hours. I just don’t have that sort of attention span and if we just talked for two hours two days ago, how much new stuff could have happened. They’re calling because they’re bored and I’m supposed to be their entertainment system or something.
Also, for those who are unemployed… it is reasonable to not answer ‘chit chat’ calls during the day to keep the phone open in case someone calls about a job. I would never sit on the phone BSing if I were job hunting. It takes time to find openings to apply to, concentration to write up resumes/letters and you don’t need to be fumbling with switching between lines if a recruiter calls.
If I had a special snowflake that complained to me about not answering the phone. That would be the very last time that I ever answered a call from them. I respond the same day to emails (even during the weekday). If you need something important, you can send me an email.
I don’t like talking on the phone, and I’m especially reluctant to talk with people I know have a tendency towards negativity. If someone has a need, or concern, or illness they need help with or sympathy for: I’ll talk. But for friends and family who mine the newscasts for recreational outrage, who call regularly to complain about relatives, or are highly critical of others, I will avoid them whenever possible. I can be in the middle of a happy, sunny day and doing absolutely nothing, but if my hateful mother in law pops up on the screen, my stomach knots and I feel angry at the intrusion. She loves her son and grandchildren. I’m obligated to spend time in her presence. I know she’s irritated when I don’t answer. But I resent her predictable shitty attitude so much that I risk her ire and ignore her calls.
I am both phone illiterate and phone averse, though not to the extremes that some people are.
But think of what making a phone call entails: by pressing a few buttons, I will be interrupting whatever the person may be doing at the moment—sleeping, eating, working, washing dishes, watching TV, having an important conversation, having sex—with an intrusive sound that they may or may not feel compelled to drop what they’re doing and turn their attention to. If they do, I then need to introduce myself to them, justify why I’m interrupting them, and communicate with them in real time without the help of visual cues. It makes me nervous.
I don’t like having a phone at all, and I used to repair the old electro-mechanical phone exchanges.
Phones are rarely about good news, its work, or problems or cold calls
Call me, and maybe I’ll answer - just as likely not.
Speaking for myself, if I see or hear the phone ringing (landline or cell) I always answer it, unless it would be inconvenient to do so (for example, if we are about to sit down to dinner, I will sometimes let it go to voicemail and then return the call after dinner. Most of the time when I don’t answer is because the phone is either switched off or on silent. In these cases I will do my best to return the call ASAP. But ASAP may not necessarily be that same day.
For texts, if a direct question has been asked or acknowledgement is required, then again I will endeavour to respond ASAP. Sometimes I might have my phone off for the day, and turn it on the following day to find a text (sent the previous day) saying something like “Want to watch the football this afternoon?”. Sometimes I may not reply as the moment has passed, but I know I should really just to say “Sorry I missed you - only just got your message”.
So in summary, sometimes I might be being rude, but most of the time I genuinely don’t hear the phone or get the message.
Tollhouse, YOU’RE the one not getting a message. With your calls and texts you’re creating an obligation he doesn’t want. It’s your problem, not his. He’s made it clear he won’t return calls, you know this, so why do you continue to fuss about it?
I have a friend who’s calls I don’t answer. A text I’ll return, but I’m not answering if she calls. She’ll babble on about every single thing that happened that day, and it’s excruciating. I once made the mistake of answering her call as I stepped in the house after work. ( After work I like to have a cold beer, get dinner going, sit and read the paper, use the can, etc…) 45 minutes after answering the phone, I still hadn’t removed my workboots. That will never happen again.
I tried to clarify in a post above.that I do not care so much if a person doesnt answer their phone right when you call them, and it doesnt matter if they use their.cell phonr or not. The intent of my thread was maybe not explained clearly enough bc some replies are about people saying they dont answer immediately. Please note, this is not so much a concern about people answering ommediately bc I understand some people are busy. The point of the concern is people who do not bother to reply to your message…especially if you need to ask them a question or need a call back, for ex to confirm something. Uggh, this thread has little to do with how much people “like” using cellphones ,it has everything to do with returning a call on whatever mode of communication…call, text, landline,email,skype etc. I sometimes dont answer my phone right when a person calls but if they ask me to call them back,for a question or something then I always return their call. Uggh, I dont think I took enough time to frame the message so its intent would be undsrstood. Maybe I should never have used the word cellphone, since alot of responses seem hung up on the dislike of cellphones. It wouldve been more relative if I had framed it as an issue of “people who do not communicate”…a poster above seemed to get my intent, he wrote how his FIL does not return calls or messages when his parents need to find out a schedule for something they were invited to. In short, this is noyt about how much people like or hate cellphones! Its about having the integrity and courtesy to communicate back when someone contacts you, esp if they need to ask you about something or confirm somthing
I think that most of us understand you. You, however, don’t appear to understand that if you habitually chatter about nothing on a phone, then some people might avoid returning your calls. I’ve given an example of how my inlaws used to call and bitch to me, and apparently I’m not the only one who’s had this happen.
If it’s one or two people who aren’t returning your calls, then it might just be that they are unsociable, rude, uncivilized people. If most of the people you call or text or email don’t reply to you, it’s probably a problem with YOU.
He left his cat over at my place and I was calling him for about two months to ask him when he was going to come pick it up. I left messages and texts, but never got a reply.
Finally, on the day that I was about to leave, I called him and said on the voicemail “come pick up your cat or I’m taking it to the pound.”
Sure enough he got the message as he promptly showed up that very same day.
They get the messages. They’re just being assholes.
You haven’t told us the nature of your unreturned messages. Are they emergencies, earth-shattering revelations, or those vague “just give me a call when you get a chance” type dealies? I will respond immediately respond to the first and second. But the last? Depends on who it is and how our conversations have gone in the past. If I find conversations with them to be pleasant affairs, I’ll call back within a couple of days. But if I absolutely dread conversations with them, I probably won’t feel very obligated to call them. Especially since they would likely know I’m much more of an email-type person anyway.
I guess you can say not returning calls is “rude”. But there’s no non-rude way to tell someone they just don’t enjoy talking to you. So the best you can do is take the hint and either make new friends or try to meet that person where they are, without taking offense.
Helena330, if you read thru my post above I explained he tends to do this with others too…my mom will comment sometimes on how he is hard “to get a hold of”,…my dad used to say likewise. When he started seeing his girlfriend she got upset with him bc one weekend they had tentative plans and then he never called her all weekend to confirm or bow out. He said he just didnt call her bc he started coming down with something and wanted to stay home. But he didnt bother to push a few buttons on his phone to let her know . She was left hanging,not certain either way if they were on or not…another friend called to invite her out on saturday but she still wasnt sure if he was gonna follow thru with their tentative plans or not so she declined the invite. By saturday night it became clear he was not gonna follow thru, so pretty much he had left her hanging without calling her back to let her know he couldnt make it. Since she was a romantic interest,after she read him the riot act basicaly,he seemed to get it in his head that if he wanted he,he would have to fly right and learn how to respond to questions . But I guess for the rest of us, since we r not obviously a romantic interest, he smugly only respinds hede and there if he feels like it. The other times he leaves us hanging like he did his girlfriend that time. If she had not took a strong stance that way,he would probably have kept up his non communicating ways with her, but he has more motivation to fly right with her, since he would have to sleep alone if he did it again to her. Sad that even tho obviously we r not his bedmates, he should still have regard for us,…
I do not answer my phone, other than calls from my gf. I prefer dealing with voice-mails and shooting off text message replies in a timely manner. Works for me.
Lynn bodoni I get some people chatter, this thread is not referring to that type siiituation. Im referring to a person who notoriously doesnt return a call (or email,letter etc) when you nneed tto ask them something, CONFIRM something,discuss a specific issue etc. He did this when his new girlfriend tried to get a callback from him to confirm their weekend plans, she was left hanging til most the weekend was over. Another time our mom had an important question about the computer and he didnt call back for five days,it was something by that time was not helpful. Another time my sister was trying for six days to find out if he was gonna be meeting them when he was in town, she was another.“left hanging” victim.