Two weeks ago, my ex took me out for a belated birthday dinner. We’ve managed to do that almost impossible thing of remaining good friends and I’m chuffed about it.
I could tell he was putting a lot of effort into this dinner (mostly by his literal text ‘Jana! I am putting a lot of effort into this dinner!!’) so I put on a fancy dress and jazzed myself up.
He picked me up in an Uber and told me the place he was taking me to was a little ‘unique’. So, when we ducked into a hidden door off a very busy street I was intrigued.
I quickly realised it was a place I follow on Instagram for their amazing deconstructed Martinis. Oh happy days! We headed straight to the bar area to try one of those first.
But just like the saying goes… martinis are like boobs. One is not enough, and three is far too many. So, we didn’t go too wild.
Jana went through an entire date without looking at her phone
After I had revelled in the heaven of this multi-faceted cocktail, and my ex with his whisky sour, we were taken to the dining room by a very fancy looking waiter.
We sat down and ordered a bottle of champagne, because who doesn’t want to make the most of a belated birthday dinner. The waiter came back over with two champagne glasses and a small pencil case – which I thought was slightly random.
He asked for both our phones, which he then put in the pencil case, zipped it up and assured us we could get them back at the end of the meal.
Umm… excuse me… what?
My ex looked at my shocked face and laughed. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about that.’ Now I should probably give you a little insight into our previous relationship for this to all make sense.
One of our main problems when dating, was that we were highly addicted to our phones. Instead of an early morning shag, we would wake up and straight away grab our phones for our scroll.
He was a businessman so it would drive me nuts every time he disrupted our conversations for a business call, and romantic car trips always turned into boring tele-conferences. Oh and don’t even get me started on the arguments we would have about Instagram.
The date was with her ex boyfriend – for her birthday – she said phones were a big killer in their relationships
Safe to say, our phones were our biggest romance killer and probably played a larger than we would like to admit role in our breakup.
So here we were sitting across from each other with no distractions in sight, and just our good selves for company. I would like to say I handled it like a champ, but you would be surprised by how tricky it can be going without your phone for a few hours.
The conversation part was fine, we both have the gift of the gab, and it has been a while since we had caught up properly, so we barely drew breath between topics.
But the first dilemma came when they brought out a beautifully prepared tray of oysters to match our champagne. I reached for my phone to take a picture of this ridiculously elegant starter, but it wasn’t there.
Ok, I thought, that’s ok. It’s probably a bit shallow to take a picture of it anyway. I repeated a very cringe mantra to myself ‘stay in the moment Jana, stay in the moment’ and got back to the juicy conversation we were having.
Then I needed to go to the loo. I reached for my phone again but yep, you guessed it, it wasn’t there. Gaaaaah.
Now I like to think most women will understand the importance of a phone during a loo break. I would normally text one of my girls to update them on our catch-up, or take a quick scroll on Instagram, or anything really to while away the time before I reached for the loo paper.
The first dilemma came when they brought out a beautifully prepared tray of oysters to match our champagne. I reached for my phone to take a picture of this ridiculously elegant starter, but it wasn’t there.
It dawned on me that it’s actually quite embarrassing that I can’t even handle a toot break without my phone. So I took a big breath, glared at myself in the mirror and headed back out.
Everything was going fine and dandy until my ex then needed to go to the loo. He took off and I was left sitting there looking into space. We were between courses, so I didn’t even have anything to munch on. Instead of scrolling Instagram, I was left to simply people watch.
I felt weirdly uncomfortable. It was like I was prying into other people’s private dining experience, so I tried to not catch anyone’s eye while I waited for my ex to come back. He laughed when he walked back in and said I was looking lost. Cringe. To be fair, I was.
The rest of the night was absolutely joyous once I just resigned to the fact that my phone was no longer in reach, and I leant into the experience. And can I just say, it was so fun to catch up properly without any distractions. By the end of the night, I felt like I had really got to know him again. We had some good deep, interesting conversations and not once did we go off track.
I held his attention the whole time, and he equally had mine.
Well… until a surprise birthday cake came out with a candle, and I once again went to grab my phone for a boastful picture. Slight hiccup on my behalf, but then we went straight back to devoted attention.
So having survived that truly horrific ordeal (ok I may be over-reacting) I’ve learnt two things about myself:
1. I am completely addicted to my phone.
2. I have to say I am now a firm believer in no phones on dates.
Yep, I’m committed to making sure I keep my phone in my handbag and staying present and in the moment. This sounds ridiculous, but it’s amazing how engaged you become when you’re not distracted by that vibrating brick usually attached to your hand.
I will, however, still take my phone to the toot. That Wordle isn’t going to work out itself!
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