| HN Mirror

> "If you have friends that like you enough to chase you around to try and make plans, that's awesome. I'm thrilled for you and I'd have to imagine you're an awesome person."

Tons of assumptions packed into your post here, all of which are incorrect due to your own lack of perspective.

Let me put this into perspective for you.

So that you can better understand the totally warped and ridiculous mindset of antisocial, contemptible extremists like me, try this little experiment: Give up your phone for 90 days. All phones. Totally and completely. Use email and snail mail only for communication. Or even IM, if you like; you don't have to go "whole hog" like me and not even have internet at the house. Just dip your toes in the water. Use a desktop or laptop for your computing needs, and leave the toy in the drawer.

There are many ways you could go about justifying this to your shocked and horrified colleagues and family members, limited by your own imagination; the best way from a scientific standpoint (to conduct a study and learn from it) would be to example pretend to be a person like me, who has decided to do this because of very legitimate reasons concerning security, privacy, etc, perhaps leaving off the part about the unwanted intrusion of society's selfish demands on one's own personal health and well being, of course, so as not to offend anyone.

(You don't want to offend anyone, right? Neither did I.)

You could say that you're doing it as an experiment for a limited time. Whatever suits your personality and temperament, while preserving whatever modicum of social standing that you hold so dear. The point is, just do it. Step into my shoes for a time, if only briefly, just to see what it's like.

Here is what you will learn:

* Yes, there are annoyance and inconveniences involved with not having a phone. They're pretty small, actually, for the most part. By far the biggest difficulty lies in dealing with other people's bullshit.

* In some people's minds, you will immediately and instantly because the biggest asshole on the planet, a totally selfish person in their viewpoint, just because they can no longer text or call you up on a moment's notice, but instead have to email and wait (sometimes an entire day!) for a reply.

* This is even despite the fact that you actually went out of your way to make it easier for them to contact you via alternate means, knowing that it would be something of an inconvenience to them, and wanting to mitigate that as much as possible. No appreciation will be shown for your efforts.

* Further reflection on the above points will demonstrate just what a low place you must have really occupied in such people's esteem, if this rather small inconvenience to them is really enough to turn people against you. This is one of many fascinating unanticipated insights into the mind and heart of humanity which you'll glean by following the road less traveled.

* Some people will instantly understand why you are doing this. To them, no explanation is needed. In many cases you will find there are others who quietly would like to do the same, but feel afraid to do so, because of social pressure. Or sometimes they will secretly think you're a nutcase, but yet will express solidarity to appear polite, while quietly judging you. And also assuming that you don't understand that they are pretending to express solidarity while quietly judging you.

* Some never will understand. They will refuse to understand, badgering you with ten thousand questions like "What? You don't have a phone? Why don't you have a phone? How can you not have a phone? What if there's an emergency? What if [...]? How is this possible? How can you even breathe?" etc.

* In many cases people will hardly be able to hide their contempt of you, and may even go out of their way to purposely make your life difficult--as if the real reason you don't have a phone was to purposely make their life difficult.

* Such people will have this greatly exaggerated bias against you, as if you have placed this enormous unwanted burden on their shoulders by simple virtue of the fact they have to exercise a little forethought and patience when attempting to contact you for whatever reason, selfish or unselfish; which (in the case of such people) you'll find generally leans much more toward the 'selfish' end of the spectrum.

* Some of the people in question may even be your own close family members--like your mother or father. These are always the saddest revelations.

* Needless to say, any burdens that legitimately but accidentally fall on others as a consequence of your attempt to live a different, better life will be blamed entirely on you, even if they have nothing to do with you and are in fact a perfect example of just what you were trying to escape from--such as the example of the mother who can no longer call her son since he doesn't have a phone, and she Just Doesn't Understand so she just calls his girlfriend instead, and he gets the blame.

* The very fact that you "think you're better than everyone else" by living a different life than the herd will be held against you.

* One previously bad thing that's been changing, is when you are asked for your phone number at any one of these thousands of places that want it so they can datamine you, in the checkout line or wherever, and you tell them simply, "I don't have a phone", people are now more likely to assume you really do have one but just don't want to give them the number--which has less of a negative connotations than their previous (idiotic) assumption that you're just too poor to pay the bill or whatever.

Those are many of the "bad" examples of things you experience by going "off the grid." I won't even bother getting into all of the good stuff, like the peace, quiet, and contentment, improved mental and physical health, etc. All of that goes without saying, really. None of that is a surprise. It's the above that will surprise you, bother you, and change your outlook, when you see from an outside perspective just how totally selfish this society really is.