Imagine sitting at a cafe, enjoying a steaming cup of joe, when a complete stranger strides up to your table, sits down, and begins to unload a torrent of awkwardly personal information about themselves to you.  That should certainly be grounds for at least a measure of protest.  Not that you may not be willing to lend a sympathetic ear to a person in need.  It’s just that said person is not even looking for an ear, let alone a sympathetic one, they are simply reeling off a tumble of deeply personal information, listener be damned.  Sound like a weird and uncommon scenario right?  Well it happens to me almost daily, and I’m guessing it happens to you a lot too.

Okay, it may not take the form of a stranger actually sitting down at your table and speaking directly to you, but it isn’t far off.  Take for instance my day yesterday, where an hour or so of leisure was spent reading magazines in a bookstore.  Not five feet from me as I sat reading was a man in heated conversation on his cell phone about his recent mother’s passing and how best to procure his share of the inheritance from his brother.  He gave an exact amount that was due him, a mention of CDs and taxation, and whether it advisable to put it in investments or a savings account.   Seems to me like a conversation that would best be done in private, but what do I know.  I thought that maybe I should just wait for the man to divulge his PIN and make his inheritance my inheritance, but as I am not a thief, I chose to switch to a seat on the other side of the bookstore instead. 

What I’ve found over the years as cell phones and now 3G have become so pervasive is that this occurrence is by no means out of the ordinary.  As a writer, I suppose I can at times nurse a penchant for eavesdropping, but it can hardly be called eavesdropping when the conversation is offered at full volume mere feet away.  I’ve been lucky enough just recently to be a included in the phone call of a man apparently breaking up with his girlfriend--I thought I should intercede on that one and tell the guy he was a dick for dumping her by phone, but I held my tongue--I’ve witnessed conversations on medical ailments, financial difficulties, and one woman who thought some guy’s ass looked really good in jeans.  At Trader Joe’s I was treated to a conversation by a twenty something d-bag in banker wear announcing that he was definitely getting laid that night.  

Do these people know we can here them?  Do cell phones cause a rich brand of mental myopia that temporarily blinds people to their surroundings?  Or do they just not care?  I don’t know, maybe I’m just stingy with my own personal life, but I prefer to keep private things private.  If I have to take a phone call on a sensitive subject in public, I try to find a nice private space out of ear shot from people.  Unlike the gentleman who only a week ago in a Starbucks had a very loud dispute with his credit card company over the phone.  It was Citibank Visa by the way, and he felt that the $30 finance charge was an error.  Personally I’d prefer that the general public didn’t even know whether I had a credit card or not.  I’ll admit that I am a very private person by nature, but I can’t help but be alarmed at all of this.

With so much advice being doled out on protecting your identity, you’d think people would be more aware.  Forget identity though, how about protecting me from detailed descriptions of your rash.  I hear that and all I can think about is what you’ve touched and whether I’ve touched it and whether I’ve paid my insurance premiums that month.  I mean honestly, can’t anything be sacred anymore?  Have cell phones and social media turned us all into raging exhibitionists?  Seriously though, if you think you may be one of those loud and indiscriminate talkers on your cell phone, have some consideration for the guy next to you who just bit into his scone.  A detailed description of your recent colonoscopy is probably not as appetizing as you think.