"Damn, the &%$#@ phone is ringing!

“Ahoy-ahoy,” says the sinister and corrupt Mr. Burns while answering the phone on The Simpsons, in one of those wonderful jokes only appreciated by those who realize that “Ahoy” was the salutation suggested by Alexander Graham Bell to be used with his new invention.

My grandfather, born in the late 1870s, never quite ‘got’ the phone. If you happened to reach him at the other end of the line, he would yell, somehow believing, since you were miles away, he had to make his voice heard across the geographic chasm.

I don’t think I – or indeed other males – quite ‘get’ the phone, even to this day. Girls are different from boys (in some quite enchanting ways) and one difference is the female relationship with Mr. Bell’s invention. Indeed, if the doughty old Scots-Canadian hadn’t invented the phone, then surely a woman would have, since they understand them, and dare I say, ‘need’ them more than men do.

Women phone people. They like to phone people. They look forward to sending calls, and they look forward to retrieving them. Men hate to phone, whether it be calling or answering. If the phone rings (and I am not expecting a call from somebody) my gut immediately tightens. If Wendy is here it’s more like: “I wonder who that could be?” She has a sound of enthusiasm in her voice.

Wendy will call her friend, Rosie, once in a while. They talk for days. I mean, she could be on the line with Rosie and I could go out and do a major grocery shopping, wash the car, take a walk on the seashore, go to a dental appointment, have coffee with a friend, and then return home and, odds are, she would still be talking with Rosie. When she finally hangs up, I’ll ask: “What’s up with Rosie?”

“Nothing much. I’m meeting her for coffee in an hour.”

How could you be meeting her for coffee? What on earth would you have to talk about that hasn’t already been discussed?

But, that’s because women have a different relationship with the telephone. For them, I think, it is a distinct means of communication. For men it is a convenience that suggests this episode of life should be expedited rapidly so life can return to normal.

In my youth I found it agonizing to call a girl. My terror was based on two things: 1) her dad would answer the phone and, 2) I would have to think of something to say. I would have to sound as urbane and witty as a 17-year-old youth could manage. What I dreaded were lags in the conversation in which I would sound even dorkier than I felt at that moment.

But, what about phone sex? I imagine you are asking. Well, there is that – I have heard. But even then, I think most males feel a bit cumbersome with it. I can’t say how the female on the other end of the line might feel about this level of communication of some mightily intimate stuff, but I think males are still probably hopeless for the most part.

“So – uh – what’re you wearing? Oh – that sounds quite nice. So – uh – what’re you doin’ now? Uh – so – this is kind of cool, huh? Oh – are you still there? Right, yeah, I can hear you breathing. So – uh …”

As for the ubiquitous mobile phone, I think statistics would bear out that females have a much more intimate relationship with their cells than men do, as well. Young guys are more interested in the games and dirty downloads than actually talking on them. Older guys (like me) put them in their glove compartments unless they’re expecting a business call. Women, on the other hand, ‘use’ them. You see them on the streets of town, at the park at the mall, on the beach, hand and little phone nestled against the shell-like.

Again, I wonder what you could have to talk about that couldn’t wait until you got home.

Finally, in my esteem, the telephone wasn’t the greatest communication invention. The adjuncts, call display and the answering machine, were much more vital. They mean I have the power to take or not take a call. I prefer the latter. And I say this not to suggest that I am in any way anti-social. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. But, I like the old eye-contact thing when I am conversing.