Saturday Night Live: An evening with no phone

Let’s be clear. I did not put my phone down. It put me down.?

Recently, during a local comedy night in a former warehouse my phone decided to end things with me just when I needed it the most. The 127th time that day I needed it the most.

As the lights came up at the half way break, my fiance made a dash for the bar. Instinctively, I reached for my phone. How else do you fill the gaps in life these days??

I chuckled to myself. The rottweiler on Instagram was refusing to get out of the car. Classic. I checked WhatsApp to see if a group of millennial/gen Z friends I haven’t seen in two years had finally managed to agree on a location and time for a beer. They hadn’t. As I prepared to check out some more memes, my phone died.

What do I do now? I was immediately uncomfortable. Fortunately, I still had most of a can of beer left, which was a relief, something I could do with my hands. I laid my dead phone to rest in my pocket, slowly uncurled my neck and decided to adopt a relaxed guy posture like Joey from friends. I stretched one arm to the left over a chair, popped my left ankle on top of my right knee and held my beer in my right hand. I had to try and own this.

For the first time that evening I took in the view. It was like that moment in Jurassic Park when they finally saw the dinosaurs. It was all happening. Half the people in the venue were on the move. 500 of them heading to get more booze like a great migration. 499 left behind to “mind the bags” and stare at their phones. I started to remember how much fun people watching could be.

Some people were literally running and cutting through people to get to the bar. They must really need alcohol I thought. I joined forces with an older couple and we shook our heads and rolled our eyes in unison. “People these days eh.”

A random shiver shot down my spine. Maybe some sort of withdrawal or grief symptom from the loss of my phone or maybe a positive reaction to engaging with a human.

I turned to my right. There was a woman clambering onto a chair. Presumably she’d been handed a more challenging route to the bar. The chair was wobbling from side to side as she frantically tried to get her balance. Victoriously she stood up and I could tell she had consumed a few wines because only one of her friends was disgusted by her maneuver whilst the rest whooped loudly.

She proceeded to clamber over three rows of chairs without placing a foot on the ground and as she dismounted I had to stop myself giving a standing ovation but we caught eyes and exchanged a smile. She knew I was hugely respectful of her achievements. Less so the security guard who pulled up alongside her to give her a telling off but she didn’t care. Her route to the bar was clear and she was off.?

I noticed the music was tremendous and tuned into the 80s classics. I was really getting into the groove when I saw a good friend walking towards me. It was Nick, the new celebrity from the front row. We’d never actually met but he had recently found fame by turning up late, something you should never do at a comedy gig and now I felt like I knew him deeply.?

I went bold. “Hey Nick, you are a celebrity now” and offered him a fist pump. Nick was glowing, he was over the moon at his new found fame. He levitated across the aisle and gladly received my knuckle sandwich. “Thanks man” he says. I was alive.?

As my fiance arrived back I eased out of my Joey posture, made eye contact, smiled and thanked her for a fresh beer.? “I’ve had a bloody good time” I profess and share the eight minute roller coaster of emotion with her. From my phone passing to feeling relaxed and connected to the world again. “You need to get a new phone,” she says. She is right, the battery has been more than terrible for a long time.

Lots of people are migrating back from the bar and being reunited with their friends who are still staring at their screens. The rottweiler didn’t seem to have made them any happier or maybe they missed it. They should have tried a high five with Nick.?

I settled in to enjoy the rest of the show and an evening with no phone. It was a very liberating experience and I took a pledge to try and improve my relationship with my phone in the future. I was a bit annoyed I hadn’t already organised an exact location to meet a friend the following day.?

Thanks for reading. If you want to recreate this feeling yourself, try a little experiment. Don’t simply put your phone down. Wait till your phone is on 1% battery and then leave the house and head straight to a coffee shop. That last 1% always lasts way longer than all the other percent so you just don’t know when it will die on you. When it does go dead embrace the terrifying reality and look forward to who you might meet and what you might see.?

Maybe I’ll see you there.?