My Phone Relationship

Prompt:

Feb 5

Call me, maybe

Describe your relationship with your phone. Is it your life-line, a buzzing nuisance or something in between?

The relationship between my phone and I is somewhat not mutually beneficial. Although my phone helps me in several ways, there is nothing significant that I do to help my phone. Oh, some people may say, ‘You take care of your phone. You wear a phone jacket for it. You protect its screen’, but those things are not the real ‘caring’. I believe that in every relationship, each party should go the distance for the other; each person should be able to positively and significantly add something to the other person’s growth and development. The developers have already developed the software in my phone, and sometimes  they require me to update it. That’s how far I can go. I cannot teach Siri anything new. I cannot add new locations to the Apple maps. I cannot console the phone when it sits beside an iPhone 6+ and feels bad. I can only use the phone and try to ‘take care’ of it. I do not believe in relationships with restraint of care and love.  

The relationship between my phone and I is disturbing. Sometimes, I think I’m obsessed with this phone. You see, I think that in every relationship, it’s okay to feel sometimes, that you’re obsessed with the other person; but when it gets to the point where you think you’re pretty much the scum of the earth without the person, then you must reassess that relationship and its impact on your self-worth. My phone makes me feel like that sometimes. Whenever the battery of my phone dies, I feel like everything fun and sensible dies along with it. But you know, just like after every heartbreak, I know that if only I let myself finally see the outside world with new eyes, I’ll see that my phone is not necessarily the concentration of all hope in the world. A disturbing relationship is hard to come out of as it is disturbing not because it is bad, but because it is negatively pleasurable. I do not like relationships with negative energies. 

The relationship between my phone and I is romantic. I do not know what’s more romantic than two individuals totally getting themselves even in their quietest silence. I love how a person can just smile at another person and they both understand the language they just both spoke. I like how two people can just mix themselves up in themselves and although the world matters, the world does not matter anymore. That’s why I love my phone. On my phone, I can just write a phrase like ‘Ikoyi next time’ on my notepad and it wouldn’t reject it for lack of understanding. My phone houses my deepest, randomest and scariest thoughts and you know, when I go back to those thoughts, my phone interprets them to me just as intended. On the other hand, I understand my phone. I know the key/passcode to its heart. In fact, it let me set the passcode to its heart (if that’s not love and trust, I do not know what is). I understand the way its applications are arranged. When it stops charging for no reason, I understand that it is not damaged like the rest of the world would like to think, but that it simply wants to rest – so I turn it off for a while and let it rest. I love relationships where it’s easy to just… love, irrespective…

The relationship between my phone and I may be a little bit confusing. Ever seen a man who is fine with his friends flirting with his girl? That’s how my phone is. My phone understands that I love it and I understand that it loves me, yet, it delivers messages from the lover and admirers. It does not get jealous although I’ll admit that there are times when some messages get ‘lost in transit’, but they are insignificant compared to the number of times I receive messages that make me smile from my heart. I see people also caressing my phone and saying, ‘I wish I had your phone’ or ‘I wish I had your phone jacket’ or ‘Oh, I love the wallpaper of your phone’. I do not feel jealous either. In fact, sometimes, I let them take the phone away. I think I like a relationship where there’s so much trust, there’s no room for jealousy. 

The relationship between my phone and I is depressing false. If you have ever chosen to love someone wholeheartedly, you know that somewhere in your heart, the possibility of the death of that person scares you and sometimes you pray that you die before they do so you do not have to continue life without them. In a simulation of danger in your mind, you’d picture you giving up your life for them in romantic martyrdom. You’d rather go hungry than see them hungry. You’d pause the whole world to attend to them. And you’d like to tell yourself that there’s only one of them in the world and so they’re irreplaceable (maybe not indispensable, but irreplaceable). I love my phone, but if I were to be honest, I do not feel this way about it. If someone put a gun to my head, I’d surrender my phone before my gunman even asks for it. I’d recharge my stomach before recharging my phone. In danger, I’d throw my phone at the threat (that is, I’d put my phone in harm’s way). And if someone threatened to destroy my phone, I’d laugh and say, ‘Let me back my stuff up. I’ll just get another phone’. I like relationships where the parties are barely replaceable to each other.