I've Heard Enough!

I realize that I am more times than not un-cool and out of the loop but, when did we get to the point where we have no idea how to define privacy or a personal matter? I am addressing more specifically, cell phones. Every public place that I go there is someone in the midst of a conversation that is really audible and very personal. These conversations range from fights with lovers and spouses to financial problems to angry gossip about other people concerning matters that really isn’t anyone’s business (even the speaker’s). As a case in point, earlier a woman stood next to me in line and talked into her cell phone as if she were at home and in the privacy of her own room. She was telling her husband or baby daddy that she had “…signed the papers in case the kids wanted to get in touch with them later on.” She was clearly talking about the point in fact that someone was adopting her children. She added that their (she and the father’s) “…final visit with the children would have to be at a public place like Chuck E. Cheese’s.” The circumstances or what may have lead up to this “decision” she did not mention.

My first reaction was that I felt horrible for her. Then I felt bad for me. Why did I have to hear that, it was really none of my business? This led me to wonder why someone would have such a conversation in line at a Rite Aid Pharmacy. Have we become so used to cell phones that we don’t even consider that others can hear our conversations? Are we so ill-bred that we don’t have any sense of shame or privacy? I am not sure what is the dominate force here. What I do know is that I see on a daily basis people of all walks of life on cell phones, people inadvertently sharing with the world very private conversations.

I’ve heard people make drug deals and once even offer to purchase a pizza and a pack of cigarettes’ in exchange for sex. There does not seem to even be an attempt to disguise these conversations. It is as if the speaker has no idea what telephone etiquette might be. In some cases I feel that the speaker might just get some sort of gratification from sharing with the world but, for most it would appear as if they are just oblivious. Well, when I was a kid I was told by others that if I did not like hearing something I should not listen. Unfortunately, that is the problem here. The most offensive conversations usually take place where I am trapped; like public transportation or in line trying to pay for breath mints.

I have written about this topic before a couple years ago with the hopes then of things getting better. They are not getting better. They are getting worse. We either don’t know or care that our personal conversations are just that, personal.