Don't Leave Me Hanging on the Telephone

There are incidental comments over at Pandagon and Eschaton about loathing talking on the phone... Amanda mentions the deranging inattentions that keep phone conversations from feeling reciprocal, and Atrios seems to be seized with loathing at the very moment the infernal contraption rings (my own sentiments exactly). Honestly, when one considers that telephonic discourse begins with an insensitive demand for attention (ri-iiiiing!), immediately followed by distracted inattentions (that's my other line! that noise? oh, I'm fixing dinner while we talk... hey, turn on channel three, look at this idiot on the teevee!), is there any more alienated perversion of communication? Although I'll admit that I often crave the momentary hit of connection that a quick phone call to a loved one provides (or does it? sometimes that connective "hit" ends up feeling like a disconnective itch, a husk, a prompt for resentment) or the quick confirmation of a phone call that I'm right on schedule for a meeting, the truth is that after two minutes on the phone I get antsy, my skin starts to crawl, I become desperate for escape. That all this discourse is happening as I am talking into the dark, possibly empty, well of the blogosphere isn't exactly a texture I'm unaware of, but there it is.