I'll text if I want at the chain restaurant, lady. So piss off.

[Chimera]

Well, just you try it at Buffalo Wild Wings!

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Bosstone

Dividing, sure. It’s kind of necessary. But that isn’t the same as not being “there”. And where a person on the phone generally has to give something like 80% of their attention to the conversation, a texter can give exactly as much attention to the texting as the presently physical situation allows. Your companion has something they want to tell you? It is infinitely easier to put the text conversation aside compared to a phone conversation.

Ah, I think we’re talking at cross-purposes here - I don’t consider someone who is dividing their attention between the people they’re actually sitting with and their electronic device to be fully “there.”

[pikey_pete]

ok…a few things. 1) do you want her to ride out on her ass or her horse? I know this is biblical, but i would appreciate clarification. b) (I was never good at organization,) by stating that you can text wherever you want when you are in Carraba’s does that mean that you can text wherever you want regardless of your location, or only when you are in Carraba’s (i.e. I can text in the bar, at my table, in the restroom, while fellating the .busboy, etc,) or do you mean that you can text anywhere you want, regardless of wether or not the location is inside a Carraba’s? I am a simple man, and not being possessed of an advanced degree in English I find myself needing clarification

[Rand_Rover]

@MandaJo

If you saw a couple both reading the paper at a table, occasionally looking up at each other, saying something, and smiling, would you think it looked sad?

My husband isn’t a phone guy, so you won’t see us both on the phone, but we LOVE to hit the used bookstore together, go out for lunch, and both look through our purchases, Ê
swapping little things we discover. Then, typically, when the food comes we put the books aside and eat and talk. What on earth is sad about that?

Stop, please, I can’t take the sadness. It’s like Old Yeller and Forrest Gump put together.

(IOW, Dio is a dumbas (as if we didn’t already know).

As an aside, anyone else wonder why the two people on this message board that are the crotchetiest old curmudgeon bastards also style themselves as holier-than-thou Obama-is-a-moderate uber-liberals? Dio and luci both bag on Starving Artist for this attitude, but they are both far worse.

[VinylTurnip]

@Rand_Rover

As an aside, anyone else wonder why the two people on this message board that are the crotchetiest old curmudgeon bastards also style themselves as holier-than-thou Obama-is-a-moderate uber-liberals? Dio and luci both bag on Starving Artist for this attitude, but they are both far worse.

Sir, would you mind concentrating on your texting? We’d prefer as little social interaction with you as possible.

[Lance_Turbo]

There’s a difference between texting and reading the paper. Texting is interacting with a third party.

I’m not saying anything one way or the other about the OP. I’m just pointing out that there’s a fundamental difference between these two activities that many posters don’t seem to be acknowledging.

• Sent from my iPhone

• From Carabba’s

[Jackmannii]

For a couple of reasons I think it’s terrific that people text at a restaurant. It’s far preferable to holding loud cellphone conversations that annoy their neighbors, and maybe if they get their texting done at the restaurant they won’t do it in traffic and wind up killing somebody.