So, I’m walking north on Broad Street heading out for my usual lunch/shopping break yesterday afternoon and I overhear this half of a cell phone conversation:
“I’m here! I just got here and it’s great. This city is amazing. I’m on Broad Street and there’s this huge church in front of me; it’s just unbelievable...”
Now as someone who grew up in a tourist town (D.C.) and has quickly come to love my adopted home of Philly (been here since January), I really wanted to stop and let this fellow-fan-of-Philly know that she was looking at City Hall.
But I was stuck. I was raised in the South and I was taught to mind my manners, say “please” and “thank you” and respect people’s privacy (aka don’t listen to other people’s conversations and if you do pretend you don’t hear anything). But this is such a fabulous, photogenic city that I could barely contain the urge to jump in and tell the lady what building she was admiring.
Let’s face it, cell phone usage has effectively blurred the line between public and private. Once I shared a late-night taxi with a couple of total strangers, one of whom was having an intimate conversation with a woman who was obviously playin’ him (“I just don’t know if I should come by. You’re sending me mixed messages.”). Another time, I asked a woman on the bus to keep it down because she was talking so loudly on the phone that I couldn’t concentrate on what I was reading even though I was sitting three rows away from her. Just this morning, I got to hear this bit of scintillating conversation: “I’m on the elevator right now. I should be there in 10 minutes.”
Cell phone use is so ubiquitous you gotta wonder how we ever knew what to bring home from the grocery store back in the “good ole days.” (And how did we make it through a concert without sneaking a quickie snapshot or two with our camera phones?)
Honestly, I’m starting to feel we should have no qualms about commenting or joining in when we overhear cell phone conversations. It’s not like cell phone users lower their voices or otherwise acknowledge the fact that their private conversations are in the public domain. But, what can I say, as long as I keep hearing that little voice in my head telling me to be polite, I’m going to mind my own business and ignore the fact that I’ve just heard what is still – in my mind at least – a private conversation that didn’t include me. After all, I’m 4’11” – who knows what might happen if I jump in on the wrong conversation!?