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I used to be a phone person. I could talk to anyone about anything. And I talked to everybody: girlfriends, guy pals, guys I liked but was too embarrassed to do anything about, friends of friends, relatives of friends… I’ve even talked to people who assumed I knew who they were when I really didn’t. I’ve clocked 5 hours, 6 hours, maybe more. I’ve dutifully held a phone to my ear and watched Seinfeld, Friends, and entire movies with a voice on the other line.

Alf came along when I was 21, and it was around then that I moved into my rental. Until we moved in together seven years later, we talked on the phone every day — many hours initially, and many uh… minutes in Year Seven.

And then zilch.

Now I type talk, mail and text wherever possible. I make work calls only because there’s no choice. I put my phone on Meeting mode although I’m almost never at one. My phone conversations with friends can be summed up in exactly six words: “Eh I’m here. Where are you?”

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It’s quite possible that no-one knows the person that I am now better than my buddy Ron. We did plenty of movies and dinners before we started talking online, and it definitely took a while before we could discuss those same things offline too. We’ve used the same picture as our avatar, totally unplanned and much to each other’s dismay. (Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan, I’m Not There.) We’ve texted each other the same thing at the same time. And yet we’ve never talked on the phone for over five minutes.

So the phone represents uncharted territory for us both, I guess. Late last year I announced over coffee that I would like us to have A Proper Phone Conversation this year, just one, just to prove we still had it in us to connect in the old way. We talked about what we might say, if we would have to plan it, what we’d do if we didn’t have any other windows to switch over to during lulls, and how weird the whole thing was.

Is it going to happen? Well, we’ll be talking about it tomorrow, over dinner with Alf.