PLEASE, DON’T CALL ME
Don’t Call Me on WhatsApp
You know you’ve made it on Medium when you’ve got a WhatsApp impersonator
To My Readers Who Received the Request to Call Me on WhatsApp,
Don’t call me.
That’s not me.
I feel violated, like when I saw my name on a bathroom wall saying “For a good time call 1–234–5678 offering a good time. Please, girl. I don’t answer my phone.
Disclaimer: I have never seen my name on a bathroom wall offering any services for a good time. I have a kid. I go to bed at 8. If anyone suggested to call me for a good time, they’d be lying.
Another reason not to call me is I don’t answer my phone. Ask anyone. They’d tell you. “She doesn’t answer her goddamn phone. Who does she think she is? The President?”
I didn’t answer my phone way before texting was preferable to talking. I know it’s cool not to answer your phone these days, but I was not answering my phone in the 70s and 80s. I was a trailblazer.
Don’t call me because when I do answer my phone, I’m not always friendly. If I’m in the middle of something, I don’t even say hello. I’ll just sit there and wait for you to tell me why you’re calling.
I know it’s rude, but it’s better than what I’m thinking, which is “What the hell do you want?”
My stepfather hated the phone because he said people only called when they wanted something. When my sisters and I rebutted “But what if they just want to talk!?” He’d say, “That’s wanting something.”
I never quite understood why it was bad to want something, but I’ve inherited my stepfather's aversion to the phone ringing. Sometimes when it rings, I growl at it. “What do they want?” I say to my phone. My phone doesn’t answer. If it could answer itself, we’d be on something.
That’s what someone should invent. A phone that answers itself and talks for you. I don’t even care what it says. It shouldn’t be an asshole, but it could be boring and use bad grammar. I don’t care, just leave me alone.
I’m not sure whose number you have on WhatsApp that's telling you to call me, but I can tell you it’s not mine.
Don’t call that number. Or me. You can call each other. You can call your friends and relatives. You can even call that self-answering phone from the future if you have a time machine.
Even if we’re good friends, don’t call. It’s not you, it’s me. And in all honesty, it’s not me. I have no idea who asked you to call them.
