“Look. You clearly don’t want to stop. If you did, don’t you think you’d just, you know, stop?”
My friend Casey is lovely, she really is, but sometimes I just want to strangle her. Her and her perfectly manicured nails, and never-out-of-place hair. She doesn’t know how to sit properly. My favourite slouchy chair is for slouching, not for sitting straight-backed, all hoity-toity. Her eyes roam around my messy living room, catching on the dirty dishes and the unused dustpan and brush.
“It’s not that simple.”
“How is it not simple, Helen? You say you don’t want to do it anymore, but you keep doing it. So, ergo, you must want to keep doing it. Simple.” I hate when she says “ergo.” I’ll “ergo” her.
“I do want to stop. I always want to stop. Even when I’m doing it, I want to stop. But I just can’t. It’s like I’m taken over by something that just keeps me glued to my phone. And then I’m scrolling some more. And more and more. And before I know it, it’s nighttime, and I really need to pee, and I haven’t eaten since yesterday, and I smell.”
“Then. Just. Stop.” Casey punctuates each word with a little clap. I hate when she does that too.
“I can’t! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I can’t.”
“But why can’t you? Everyone’s on their phones too much; that’s just the way things are. But you don’t see me pissing away the day scrolling. If I can put the phone down, so can you. C’mon Helen, you’re just being dramatic. Have you even tried to put it down?”
“Of course I’ve tried! I’ve done nothing but try.” My eyes slide to the notifications popping up in a steady stream. Instagram. TikTok. Facebook. WhatsApp. Even LinkedIn. I flip my phone over. It clunks against the table, drawing attention to itself.
“Well, you’re obviously not trying hard enough.”
“Jesus, have a little compassion, would you?”
Casey’s eyes narrow. “Compassion? What do I need compassion for? It’s not like this is a big deal or anything. You’re on your phone, so what. So’s everyone else in the world.”
“I’m struggling.”
“Oh, well, I’m sorry for you then. But not everything’s about you. You didn’t even ask about how work is going for me, or about my trip. A ‘how’s your mother?’ would have been nice.”
“I’m trying to have a conversation with you about something important.”
“And you’re saying that my life isn’t important, is that it?” I wish I could raise a single eyebrow like that.
“This is not about you, Casey! God!” I am trying hard not to stamp my foot. I’m not a child, and this isn’t a tantrum. “I need help. Will you help me?”
Casey sets her coffee on the table. “I am helping you, Helen, this is me helping you. You mightn’t like what I have to say, but you need to hear it. Tough love and all that.”
“Tough love?”
“Yeah, tough love. You need to just get over yourself. You’re acting like this is some deep-rooted condition that you can do nothing about. You hold all the power here. You have control over your own actions; just choose differently.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? Every single moment, I’m choosing differently. Every single day, but I’m just so tired. And if I slip up for just a second, just a millisecond, that’s it, I’m gone. I can’t help it. And my brain works against me. It tells me, ‘Five minutes won’t hurt’, or, ‘I can stop anytime,’ or exactly what you said; ‘Everyone does it, it’s fine.’ But it’s not fine, it’s not fine for me. I have a problem.”
“Do you hear yourself? You have a problem? You’re not a bloody addict, Helen. There’s no such thing as phone addiction, there’s no twelve steps. There’s people out there who have actual problems. What about real addicts? Those who shoot up heroin every day? Are you saying you’re just like them? What about the starving children in Africa? Those are real problems.”
Ah, the big guns: the ‘starving children’ line. That particular guilt-trip tugs at my catholic shame—disapproving grandmothers, angry primary school teachers, the Trócaire collection box.
Casey means well. I keep telling myself that.
“You just,” she continues, “need some perspective. Go have a walk or something. You don’t have a problem; there’s not a bother on you.”
There’s no talking to her. She’s made up her mind, and there’s nothing I can say to change it. She’s branded me as an appropriator of sympathies, a hysterical woman whose life is so easy that she has to invent a problem for attention. I can see how her mind works so clearly. She’s already dismissed me.
“Yeah,” I say quietly, “okay. I’ll go for a walk. Talk to you later?”
“Sure, DM me,” and she walks out, leaving her unfinished coffee steaming.
My head thunks against the headrest of my second favourite slouchy chair. DM. My smile is bitter and thin. Of. Fucking. Course. I couldn’t help doing little claps to the empty room to punctuate.
