Who gets social etiquette? - Not me

I hate social etiquette; of course I respect politeness to a certain degree, but as a mainframe, as a body of rules driven in to me; overriding my ability to respond to questions in a reasonable and true way, it is a lot of bother.

Take for example those instances when something is offered to you, in British homes this is traditionally a biscuit. This may take the form of a custard cream, or a Hobnob if you’re really lucky. Somewhere inside me, on someone warped level, there is a belief that it is rude to accept this domestic gift, particularly on the first offer. It’s so minimal that it hardly exists, and yet it provokes this kneejerk reaction of “No thank you,” whether I fancied a Bourbon or not. What is this ingrained reaction? Is it some Catholic hangup, from the same group of people who made us think sex is naughty?

Whatever the case, once I’ve rejected the first offer, it becomes increasingly difficult to subsequently contradict your answer, for fear of being ‘awkward.’ If by their third offer you still haven’t agreed to that cup of tea, there’s no sensible way of changing your mind and keeping your dignity intact. By that point you’re too far-gone, they already know how things are going to play out, and the third offer is just a courtesy. They’ve likely resigned themselves to remaining seated – already mentally relaxing – knowing that they aren’t going to have to negotiate your bizarre demands of two dashes of milk, three quarters a spoonful of sugar, and a drop of vanilla honey from Mount Mainalo.

One of the worst case scenarios for not accepting a host’s hospitality is when you are asked first amongst a group, and not wanting to put the host out, you politely decline, only to feel an increasing amount of regret as every other guest accepts the offer, thereby making your sacrifice redundant. What’s worst about this situation is that it’s nearly impossible to forego your initial response; the level of embarrassment is equivalent to making a public apology.

In these cases we seem to be punished by our social laws, but experience tells us that they protect us as well. In the last instance the most you can lose is a digestive, perhaps a Jaffa Cake if you’re very unlucky, but what if you were to say yes, hoping to lead the pack by example, saying, ‘It’s okay to accept,’ only for them to turn their back on you, and one after another decline the offer; leaving you stranded on your island of gluttony and social exclusion.

Despite the guidelines that social etiquette provides, enabling us to get by without offending anyone, whilst simultaneously winning them over with our impeccable politeness, I can’t help but find some elements distasteful. I’m speaking of the general dishonesty and phoneyness that pervades social occasions. Such as the time when you receive birthday presents on your birthday, and you have to say things like, “Oh, you didn’t have to do that!” and smile sincerely, all the while reaching out to gladly receive, but at the same time displaying that tiny possibility that you’re not going to accept it, that it would be presumptuous of you to do so. And you wouldn’t want that.

WTF?

In what way is it presumptuous to expect gifts on one of the two days of the year where the act of present giving and receiving is not only warranted, but encouraged? God knows you’ll be annoyed if they don’t, however well you hide it, and I usually find the ones who are most obvious about their displeasure at not receiving presents are the same who act most surprised when they do.

I myself find it difficult to engage in this day-to-day pretence, of always being delighted by acts of kindness or generosity, especially as most of them are so predictable. Such as the mock row and fight over who gets to pay for dinner:

“No, no. I insist.”
“Well, I doubly insist!”
“It doesn’t matter, you paid last time.”
“But that was only for the two of us at a fast-food joint, it hardly compares.”
“Be that as it may…”

How easily I lose this fight. When someone makes an offer once, that is more than enough for me. Case closed. You win. Game over. Lights out. Short declarative sentence. See you later.

Dealing with Social Pariahs

How to identify a social pariah

In every school and in every workplace you will find these creatures. They appear human, but there is something distinctly wrong about them. It’s hard to place, but you notice it in the way that they walk. It’s different, it’s not dysfunctional but it lacks grace. As if they read about walking online before they tried it. They go through the same motions, but everything they do is a cheap imitation of human behaviour, a foreign knockoff.

It is perfectly acceptable to ask after someone’s plans for the weekend, but if they start getting too specific with their questions you may be in danger. Watch out for this line of questions: “Got any plans for the weekend?…oh bowling, where do you go to do that?…I know the place, what time will you be arriving?…and how long will you will stay?…yeah, I know each game doesn’t have a specific time but if you were to make an educated guess?…OK, OK, there’s no need to get angry…will you be wearing my fav- I mean, your favourite jeans?”

One of the pariah’s most obvious traits is its need to please. A pariah will fall over himself to perform favours of any kind for you. A typical conversation with a pariah might go something like this:
Me: Seen any good films lately?
Pariah: Yes, I re-watched The Dark Knight last night. It is brilliant.
Me: Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to watch that.
Pariah: (pulling out a copy) You can watch mine.
Me: You just carry it around with you?
Pariah: I wanted to be ready in case you asked.
Me: Is this signed by Christopher Nolan?
Pariah: Yes, I bought it for £138 on ebay.
Me: Wow.
Pariah: Do you want it?

Notice in this example the act of present giving. This is another common ploy of the pariah. They believe that present giving is acceptable at all levels and a fast way to curry favour. This is not to say that gift sharing is weird, just that there are certain boundaries that we all follow, and a pariah will often reveal himself by stepping over these boundaries. For example, giving a work colleague 10p so that they have enough to get a toffee crisp from the vending machine is decent, if not encouraged. But buying a toffee crisp each day and leaving it on their keyboard in a ribbon is creepy. The only way to make this situation worse is by waiting for them to look up in gratitude so you can offer your sickly grin. A grin that says, “I only want you to love me!”

The threat they pose

Everyone wants human connection, but none more so than the social pariah. They crave it with an alarming intensity, reaching hungrily towards it like a wilted flower to sunlight. Indeed, their desire is so strong, that it is impossible for them to hide it. They wear it like an ugly mask – more unnerving than any Halloween equivalent.

Outcasts thrive on your attention; they leech off of it like life-force. The best piece of advice I can offer is to treat them like a bully. I.e. ignore them. If you see an outcast crying into his lunch, wiping away his tears with his cheese and pickle sandwiches, steer well clear. This is one of their many ploys to gain your sympathy. It is the only way they know of attracting others, trapping them into ‘friend’ status.

You see, when you become ‘friends’ with an outcast, however loose you may consider this term, you’re actually entering a relationship. The outcast will latch on to you, developing a rapid dependency multiplied by any goodwill you send their way.

How to get rid of them

Much like leeches, pariahs are sensitive to heat, and are most easily removed by extinguishing matches on their bellies. Another option is imitate their behaviour in a more frightening manor. Turn up at their house late at night and hang around till they come home. If they invite you in, refuse by saying you better be off now, and then wank on their windows.

Closing thoughts

What makes pariahs so dangerous are their abilities to tap into the kinder man’s natural sympathies for its fellow man. When an outcast presses us with it its piercing questions, despite feeling unsettled, we would rather tell vague white lies than be rude, because god forbid we should offend the freak. Perhaps we need to reassess the way we treat these social pariahs. We shouldn’t be looking on with benevolence, but instead take the opportunity to satiate our deeper, and repressed cruel instinct. They only use our compassion as a weapon against us anyway, so why not take this opportunity to dump our pent up ‘badwill’ on them?

We’ve all had days when we want to hit and scream at our loved ones, and when is that ever productive? Why not save it for those who are used to the abuse? Those that have made a life out of suffering; those who even in their own minds have thoughts only of self-deprecation. These of all people are equipped to deal with the pain of a nation. They should not be feared, but revered as a gift to soothe our ugly sides that would disgust a normal human being.

It’s a controversial theory, but what other choice to we have when to be kind to an outcast is to be cruel to yourself?

Older

I’m 21, but sometimes my body tells me I’m older. There are little signifiers to watch out for. Like the little groan that escapes the back of my throat when I get out of a chair, and the corresponding sigh of relief when I fall into one. Is this really necessary? Is my body that out of shape that it likes to remind me that the transition between sitting and standing is a stressful one to me?

I’m stuck with it now, it’s not going to get any better, but neither will it get worse. There never seems to be much range in this noise, depending on just how decrepit you are. I think it would be a good indication as to how old someone is. In your thirties it’s the sigh, barely noticeable above the sound of the TV. In your fifties it becomes an inappropriate bark, almost angry, as if lifting yourself out of a chair is a battle. By seventy, you’re screaming; afraid that every ascent may be the death of you.

I’ve tried to rectify this problem and eliminate it from my system. I refuse to have it until I’m a dad. So now, I hold my breath, and by the time I’m on my feet my face is purple. For whatever reason, the sighing eases the process, as if there was a major difference in air pressure between my height and the level of the couch. As if the sighing releases a valve that makes it safe to be upright. If I somehow fail to eject myself from my chair (one of the hazards of not breathing) I may have to wait a good quarter of an hour before I’m stable enough to try again, or I risk passing out.

I wonder if there is more to the ‘couch sigh’ than first meets the ear. Perhaps it is a modern rites of passage, that suggests a new phase in life that every man comes to at one point or another. A time when father and son both expel their breaths in agreement, as if so much were contained in their sighs. It suggests experience, a wistfulness and resignation, but an acceptance of life. At this point the father could turn to his son, his eyes shining with pride, whilst his shaking hand proffers an ancient technology. Passed from fathers to sons in livingrooms across the country. As if to say, you can’t control life, but you can control TV.

The sighing in unison is a rare and mystical phenomenon. At a family gathering I once stood up at the same time as my dad and one of my uncles. The resulting noise was a chorus of effort, as if we were an a cappella group demonstrating a synchronised cough. It was like four doors of a car being shut simultaneously, so that it didn’t sound like four doors, but instead one huge booming door. This occurs as seldom as the perfect alignment of the planets in our solar system, but with less catastrophic events. In this instance we accidentally blew out the candles on my cousin’s birthday cake.

Going Public

There’s something inherently depressing about buses. Strangers bound together by a reliance on public and grotty services. I’ve never seen anyone happy to be there, and the thought that usually strikes me when I step on is: This is where ugly people go to die. Why else are there are no seatbelts? It’s like a bottom rung reject club, where the only requirements are that you can’t find or afford other transport. This hardly makes up for the most pleasant of company, who are only there because they don’t have any friends with cars or because their license was revoked after drink driving. Conversation is made almost entirely of gestures that ask ‘Is that seat free?’ and the blank response that says ‘I will stab you if you sit there.’

This dynamic changes if you recognise someone you can sit with. Be careful though, make sure you have plenty to talk about before you sit next to them, as unless you want to avoid awkward silences, there’s no polite way of moving somewhere else once you run out of words for each other. The friend you find on the bus is always someone you haven’t seen in years, and after you start talking, you’ll remember why. Using a prop, such as a book or an iPod is a good way of signifying that the conversation has ended, and a great way of saying to your ‘friend’ that it’s okay, they don’t have to talk anymore.

However, there are some people that don’t understand this rule, and will begin speaking to you even when you have your headphones on. All you will hear is garbled noise, at which point you have two options. Either take off the headphones, or just pretend you can hear them and make generic responses to their noises. I usually find that ambiguous hmms and yeahs are your best bet, and just pray they don’t say anything like, “I’ve been really depressed lately, I think I’m going to end it all.”

The trouble with the first approach is, you are unlikely to start a full conversation again, so simply turning your device off won’t be worth it. Instead, you’ll end up playing that game where you constantly remove and reapply the headphones as you engage in awkward and stilted chat, where every response from you begins with “What did you say?” You will often feel as if you are in a terribly unfunny comedy sketch, as they only find something to say once they are certain you’re not listening.

When the bus approaches a stop, I find that people are always so anxious to be prepared, as if getting up and moving to the door takes any longer than two seconds. Perhaps they are worried that the driver is particularly unforgiving, and only allows neat time windows of door opening, and will close the doors even when they are only halfway through, trapping them – screaming and wailing until the next stop. Let me assure you that this is not true. I myself like to remain seated for as long as possible, partly because I like sitting down, and partly to save myself the embarrassment of holding my balance when the bus comes to a sudden halt.

My departure habits do not pose any issues if I have an aisle seat, but if I’m locked into a window seat, you have to let the person know to let you out. Sometimes they read the signs too early though, and begin standing up when I’m just putting my bag on my lap. Not yet! I want to command them; there is still 15 seconds of good sitting time. What do you think you are doing? It’s apparently unreasonable to expect them to wait in the aisle until you are ready to stand.

I didn't mean that

For me, predictive text is the way to go. It’s come a long way since it was first introduced, and has a respectable dictionary. However, it has one glaring oversight. Something myself and my housemate Sarah Jane Chambers noticed whilst sipping on scones. It doesn’t have ‘fuck’. Or any other expletive, for that matter. It is totally innocent, apparently.

If I want to write ‘fuck’, it suggests ‘dual or duck’. Name me one person who doesn’t live in the country that will use either of those words more than ‘fuck’. It can’t be done. Fact. Now stop thinking.

As much as it does miss out a vital part of my vocabulary, it does also make sense. It protects the more easily offended from being asked, “Did you mean, ‘fistfucker’?” You may be intending to send a perfectly honourable text to one of your family members, but instead of saying “Hey aunt!”, accidentally say “Hey cunt!”

So you have to go back to typing in the letters yourself, for those crucial curses. The only problem is, I often forget to turn the predictive text back on, and carry on unwittingly, sending out texts like ‘Gdw gmw wmt dmgmg?’ for the rest of the day.

Check out Bill Bailey's song about the problems with texting.

Another problem with using predictive text is that you don’t always use the punctuation you had intended. This can have a big impact on the meaning, and dangerous if you’re in the early part of a relationship and are asked a direct question. I was once asked by text “do you miss me?” Now this is the first time she had asked this question. It’s one of those more vulnerable moments when you open your heart to someone, and say, kiss or cut me. I wanted to end my response with a love affirming, “miss you!” I text back immediately to reassure her, but went wrong. I’m not quite sure how this happened, but I instead ended with the challenge, “miss you?”

This was less love affirming than it was relationship ending.

I’ve become more of a fan of the exclamation mark of late. It suggests positivity and energy. However, I do draw the line at using them to ‘enhance’ a joke. I believe it does not have this quality. However, this is not a unanimous view. One not shared by an older generation. You see it worst when your parents join facebook to share comments! Make unfunny, parent jokes! Like, you don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!

They seem to think the exclamation mark has some inherent comedy value, which will transform their shitty little aside to comedy gold. Every time I see that exclamation mark, I think of their face, a prize of glee, their eyes wide with farcical madness, barely able to contain their own laughter as they add the punctuation, and now as they see it for themselves, well they’ve never seen anything so funny. And then for a wild second it occurs to them, how could they make this funnier? No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t possibly. But already their right hand is holding down the big shift key, and their left is edging guiltily towards the ‘1’. It hasn’t even been entered, but already the suspense is too much. Their face begins to crack as sharp and shallow breaths are taken, and then the finger comes slamming down, crashing through the keyboard, lodging the ‘1’ into a permanent state of ‘pressed’. The !!s file one after another, replicating like chromosomes in mitosis. An endless stream, a parade of mirth in symbols. The laughter is coming thick and fast now and the parent is struggling to find breath. He has never laughed this much in his life. It is unbearable. He has to leave, but his eyes hold fast, as if in a trance; there is no looking away. The joyous hiccups have turned to uncontrollable wheezing to epileptic fit. The eyes are bulging and the tongue drying up. He clamps his jaw in order to stop himself, but succeeds only in smashing his teeth like dishes, the shards of which he breathes in, slicing his lungs into wet pillowcases. He dies a bloody and unfunny death.

May this be a warning.

You Know You're 21

I recently had a check up with a doctor, no real issue, nothing scary. Except it wasn’t Dr Fitzpatrick, my childhood doctor, who had seen me through chicken pox, gastric enteritis and man flu. The bastard was taking a break in the Bahamas. Not that this bothered me at the time. I was being foisted onto Dr Ward, a Lady Doctor. This didn’t seem like a problem; It’s not as if I had misread the dose for viagra and was now sporting an angry pocket snake, and neither had I ‘accidentally’ plugged my rear end with a rubber bath duck, or any similarly embarrassing incident.

A lady doctor? Of course I’ll see her. As it happened, Dr Ward was an attractive, soft-spoken woman. She went through the routine professionally, and I’d like to think, with some enjoyment. You see, I thought I spotted a glint in her eye that suggested she liked what she saw. Of course I wasn’t going to try anything, I’ve spoken before about my ineptitude with women. I’m like a charmingly bumbling Hugh Grant, but without the charm. I felt safe in the knowledge that nothing could happen between us. I’m a young man and she an older woman, but I took pleasure in imagining a mutual admiration for one another. I felt my heart race as she held my arm firmly and took my pulse. “A little irregular,” she remarked, with a secret smile, as if she was all too aware of the source of its excitement. Fuck me, I thought, mentally willing her to straddle me. I became worried that a telling tent might form, but pocket snake remained calm and philosophical on the whole matter.

“Ok, if you’d like to take your top off…” I did as I was told, hoping she’d follow it up with “And now you’re trousers…and now you’re pants…and now – no, leave the socks on.” Enjoy, I thought, trying not to make it obvious that I was flexing. I searched her face, trying to distinguish any signs of the moral turmoil that she faced within – Surely I couldn’t, not here. It would be so unprofessional!

I almost thought I saw something; a slight blush, a parting of the lips, the involuntary dilation of the eyes. Yes! I thought, Yes, take me now! To hell with the consequences! To hell with your house-husband and his collection of WWII model planes, to hell with shepherd’s pie! And just as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone. So quick you could have missed it. So quick you doubted it was there at all. Oh, but it was there all right. However fleeting. Only now her pupils had narrowed to cat’s eyes. Her mouth; wired shut, and her complexion was pale; sickly, even.

She then moved swiftly behind me, and began tapping at various points on my back. Her hands now felt cold, and ‘knuckly’. My body responded in turn and began to goosepimple. My nipples hardening into corners. It seemed only moments before that her hands were warm, and radiated with a sensual healing. Where once she treated me in a gentle but professional manner, her approach was now rough and impatient. I felt like Oliver Twist being checked over by a Victorian nun. I felt the shame of my desire, and the desire itself diminishing.

The sexual tension that couldn’t have been cut with a knife could now be swiped by a baguette. What had happened? What had changed? I tried to play over in my mind the exact point at which the alluring smile malformed into a disdainful lip curl. Playing it back again and again like an obsessed detective whose been let off the force because the case is getting in the way of his life. There! What was that? Johnson, get over here! It looks like we got our man. And there it was: the eyes, spotting something. Something they didn’t like, about the level of my midriff, and the rest of her face reacting, closing off.

I looked down to see what could have been so offensive, so pivotal to the affections of a trained doctor. A person who’s familiar with some of the most grotesque and sickening ailments of the human condition. What I saw shook me to the core: a spec of fluff, collected in the recess of my bellybutton. Ok, it was more like a wad, but I was confused. How could this have accumulated here? I had showered that morning. What distressed me even more was the colour. Blue! How was this possible? I don’t own any clothes that are blue, and nor had I given a naked-belly-hug to a pile of blue linen.

Not a day before my 21st had I ever experienced this phenomenon. Now each day begins with an apprehensive rummage that has become as routine as brushing my teeth. Are adult bellybuttons adhesive? Or does some sort of cotton bee try to pollinate it overnight, its mature form resembling a fleshy flower?

I'm not a rapist

Since becoming a student I've been walking a lot more. And because I don't get up till late, a lot of my walking takes place at night. This is fine. Bath is a nice, and relatively safe town. Rarely do I feel in danger. However, I do worry about the strangers I share the street with. In particular, the small and dark alleyways I take home. In particular: women.

Now, I know I'm not a danger to these women, but I worry that they don't know this. If a woman is walking five paces ahead of me on one of those nights, the only thing going through my head is, "I hope she doesn't think I'm a rapist." I start to think, should I reassure her? Put her at ease. Is there a more awkward and terrifying time to initiate a conversation? I don't have to introduce myself, perhaps just tap her politely on the shoulder and say, "You don't have to worry about me. Seriously, I could have raped you four times by now."

The dynamics of the situation can change dramatically if you're walking with a friend. If you walk with a silent purpose, then the woman will become understandably tense. However, I think she can be put at ease if you speak loudly about ordinary and non-rapist things. If I'm walking alone I'll try to compensate this by pretending to phone a friend, and subtly put my pursuant at ease: "Hey buddy, how's it going? - Oh nothing, just walking with harmless intent...yeah, just returning to my loving and mentally stable family...Indeed, there is no history of violence in my family...no, ha ha! I'm just enjoying the walk, I don't know how I could make this any better; I'm certainly not thinking about raping anyone."

Pursuing someone, I mean walking in even step behind someone leaves you in an odd position of power. A power that can be abused. If you are particularly cruel - I'm not talking about the you-will-go-to-prison sense - you do have the opportunity to turn to your friend and say, "Seriously, shall we just do her now?" You will never see someone run so fast in heels.

The matter of overtaking is a difficult one. Do you? Don't you? There's a real science behind this matter. Judging speeds - She's walking briskly, if I overtake her, I'm going to have to power-walk all the way home. You have to go easy; you don't want to unsettle her by breaking into a run. This worries me when I'm jogging; that people will only hear me about 3 feet before I overtake them, and in their panic, they too will begin running. Now it looks like I'm chasing them. To avoid this, once I get within 20 feet of someone I start taking louder steps and drawing huge, laboured breaths. This allows them time to turn around, see the running gear and iPod, and realise that they are not in mortal danger.

Sometimes when walking, I realise I'm gaining on someone very gradually. It's only so long before you reach an intimate distance, and then cross that threshold from stalker to lead walker. During this time, there is that brief interim where you actually move past them. This is the most awkward phase, and no words shall be spoken. There is a code in walking that says if you are being overtaken, you subtly reduce your speed so as not to prolong the moment. Not everyone observes these rules. These are dangerous people. One time I went for the overtake, and not only did she not slow down, but once she realised what was happening, she actually sped up, denying me my overtake. To say I was mildly outraged would be an understatement. I was in disbelief.

I went again, drawing level with her. She tried to move away, but this time I was ready. We began to move faster and faster, our legs becoming a blur as our march turned to jogging turned to flat out running. We ran like this, side by side for half a mile. People saw us coming, they saw what an unstoppable force we were and wisely crossed the street. Cars stopped in their roads, the drivers staring dumbly at us, having never seen such a phenomenon: two people running in perfect symmetry, locked together by an unseen energy.

Bell 2: Multitasking

When it comes to speaking on the phone, I'm still liable to panic, as I'm completely inept at achieving anything whilst holding a phone to my face. It brings us back to that idea that women can multitask and men can't. It's feminist propaganda like this and sentences like, 'women are better drivers than men,' 'women deserve equal pay for the same work' and 'you can only beat your wife with a wooden pole and not a metal one' that makes me want to push small children over.

However, when it comes to doing stuff and talking on the phone, I think women may have won this one. I could call my ex (that's right, ladies ;) at any time of the day and receive a monologue of her precise movements: "Yeah, I'm just paying now...ooh, I've just dropped the money, silly me...she's just given me forty-three pence in exchange for my ten pound Stirling." Me? I don't answer the phone if I'm in a cue.

Women are prepared to answer a call at any given occasion. They could be cooking a roast, cleaning an expensive vase, or indeed any other stereotypical-about-the-house activity. One time I phoned my partner (I can call her that) and everything seemed to be normal, except for what sounded like these large blasts of air.
"What're those noises?" I asked.
"A fire extinguisher, my curtains are on fire."

If I receive a call whilst I'm about the house, I have to tie my legs down so that I'm not distracted by the thought of walking. Ladies hate it when you're distracted. And it doesn't matter that they can't see you, they'll know.

I think one of the few times that a man will answer a phone when a woman definitely won't is when he's using the toilet. Number one, number two; it doesn't matter. If there's one thing Man can do whilst maintaining a conversation it's answering that separate call to nature. How else do you explain urinals? It's not about efficiency, it's about socialising; bonding.

The one problem with this is that you can never let a woman know that you're attending to business whilst speaking to her. Thankfully, mobiles aren't at the megaphone level of audio pickup, so if you stick to the side of the bowl, you're pretty safe, and if it's a number two, just avoid groaning and other sharp outtakes of breath.

OK, so you're finished, and without arousing too much suspicion. Do you flush? Of course you want to flush, every fibre of your potty-trained hand is being drawn towards that paddle shaped arm. One technique is to edge toward the door, whilst simultaneously leaning towards the flusher. You press, turn, slam the door behind you and charge down the hallway. It's hopeful, but never in the history of Man (unless you're Usain Bolt or a toilet ninja) has this worked. Even if you manage to escape the tidal wave of decibels, you're still going to have to explain why you're suddenly out of breath.

Bell

When my phone rings, my instant reaction is to panic. This panic becomes heightened if I’m sat down and the phone is lodged deep into my jeans pocket. The ring of a phone to me sounds more like a countdown, the everyday equivalent of a bomb going off. The only consequence is that I miss the call, and then have to call that person back. Well, when I say it so logically, what the hell am I worrying about? This is all quickly forgotten when I hear those alarm bells.

Sometimes the phone will go off, and you can hear it, but you’re not quite sure where it is. At first the search is casual, it’ll turn up, you’re thinking. Soon pillows and magazines are being thrown aside, sofa-cushions pulled out, and bookshelves overturned. By the time the device is found, you’d be forgiven for thinking I had been burgled.

Things get worse if the phone is in another room. You’re watching TV when you hear a familiar tinkle. So distant you’re not sure you even heard it. You pause Sky+ (which comes from as little as £16.50 a month, and they install it for free) and prick your ears. Yep, there it is. The insistent bell, making me react like I’m expecting a call from my wife’s kidnappers. Who knows how long it’s been ringing? There are no other options; I’m going to have to run. I bound and leap through the house like a gazelle, taking the stairs three at a time. I trip and fall, receiving a bruise that’s going to bother me for a week, but for now barely registers – I’m already on my feet again, my legs devouring the ground beneath me, silently counting the amount of rings: 16! No one calls longer than 16! I reach for the phone, and snap it to my ear, hoping to save precious milliseconds.
“Hello! Hello?”
“Hi there, sir. This is T-Mobile, would you like to take part in our survey?”