by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/11/04 15:01 -05:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/11/04/5886907.aspx
Only the piece of the post in bold actually happened recently (yesterday or thereabouts!), the rest is what I made of it later. Fair warning!
Another overheard conversation over at The Cambrian on the way to get mail, two kids looked like maybe 11 or 12.
She said "I'll give you a call."
And he said "I won't give you one."
And they both smiled.
Took me right back.
Remember the sixth grade?
She wanted to call, but she was afraid to be the girl who calls.
So she liked when he called because it saved her the trouble of overcoming the fear of calling.
Of course she wanted to call a little bit because she knew he'd like it if she called because he knew it was such a big deal.
And he wanted to not be the only one who called because of what that made him look like. And anyway, then he'd never know if she was going to call.
So she said "I'll give you a call."
And he said "I won't give you one."
And they both smiled.
She probably wouldn't call, but would he? THAT is the question.
Kind of scary when you think about the fact that they do want to talk, both of them. What's with the games?
I think I wondered back then, too.
Of course, back when this was the kind of dance I had to do, we had no caller ID or automatic redialer, so if one lost one's nerve after hearing the voice one could hang up safely.
I am so glad I was past this phase of my life before technology made it so much harder by making things so much easier.
Though I wondered why they would just text each other now, isn't that what the kids are doing?
What does this do to the semantic/pragmatic content of the communication? :-)
Hang tough, guy -- wait for her to call. Those weekends always worked out better for me when they went down that way....
DISCLAIMER: this post inspired by the actual conversation I overheard the two lines and saw the smiles of. But it happened to me a couple of times growing up and sometimes even a little later than the sixth grade (though clearly one feels like one is back in the sixth grade when it is happening!). The above might have been a completely inaccurate portrayal of what the conversation was about, but the continuity of thinking they were about the same makes me realize how glad I am to be past the particular phase of my own life. :-)
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# John Cowan on 4 Nov 2007 9:53 PM:
It sounds totally bizarre and incomprehensible to me. But then again, in the sixth grade (and even since) I was well-known to be a bizarre and totally incomprehensible person.