Electronic communication among human beings has become extremely simple. Gone are the days of switchboard operators, rotary dials, and roadside telephone booths. The need for number memorization, manual dexterity, and a pocket full of change are archaic concepts only the oldest of us can recollect.
In the year 2010, all that is needed to contact a friend is a cellular phone, a semi-charged battery, and the first name (and possibly last initial) of the person you’d like to speak to. This process can be completed in all manners of debilitating physical conditions, most notably while fantastically drunk.
For the friend of an active drinker, the drunken phone call can come unexpectedly at any hour of the day. If handled improperly, this can quickly become a lost opportunity for both information acquisition and comedic relief. It is essential for the receiver of drunken phone calls to be prepared at all times.
I’d like to briefly clarify the difference between the drunken phone call and the drunken text message. While the drunken text message shares all of the superficial qualities of its aural cousin, it differs in two very important ways. First, the text allows the recipient to react with more patience.
He or she will have time to carefully word and then edit any response. Secondly, and more importantly, the text conversation creates a digital transcript of the exchange for future reference. Whereas the drunken text can be fun for even the most novice of cell phone users, a properly handled drunken phone call requires a certain degree of verbal deft and a rudimentary grasp of improvisation.
There are several ways to recognize when a drunken phone call has been initiated. Upon answering the phone, listen for slurred speech, low-grade country or rock music playing in the background, or the sound of friends yelling your name into the receiver from a distance. A drunken dialer may even question how it is that he or she he ended up speaking to you in the first place. This type of short-term memory loss is common among drinkers and should not cause you any undue alarm.
A common error made when receiving a drunken phone call for the first time is a feeling of sympathy for the dialer. You may be overcome with guilt and decide that the conversation should be ended as quickly as possible, thus saving the dialer any unnecessary embarrassment. This feeling is wrong and should be fought at all costs. The drunken phone call may begin as a hastily made decision, but once contact has been established, the sanctity of human conversation should be respected and allowed to flourish.
Allow the exchange of thought to occur organically between you and your drunken friend. Do not feel the need to segue from topic to topic. A sufficiently inebriated cell phone user will provide all manner of conversation options and you can simply ask him or her to elaborate or clarify as the need arises.
No topic should be considered taboo and you should encourage the caller to delve as deeply into his/her private thoughts as possible. For instance, you may be enlightened as to with who the caller has a newly kindled sexual interest. Many times the receiver of the drunken phone call is the object of said interest, which is what may have initiated the drunken phone call in the first place.
Wherever this conversational merry-go-round takes you, it is your responsibility as the more sober cell phone user to commit to memory as many details of the exchange as possible. Keeping a pad of paper and a pen handy when accepting calls is a good way to keep notes, but the more tech-savvy conversationalist may consider a portable electronic voice recorder to be a more reliable and thorough approach.
After a while, you may notice the caller’s attention begin to wane or his/her speech pattern becomes unintelligible; this is a good indicator that the communication is reaching its conclusion. At this time, you should ask to hand the phone to a more sober friend to confirm there is a safe ride home waiting for your drunken caller. This will provide piece of mind enough to rest easily, knowing your friend will surely live to drunkenly call you another day.
This act of responsibility will also provide you with moral high-ground, which you can cash in the next day after you’ve posted a complete transcript of your conversation on a social networking website of your choosing.
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