A conversation with yourself

My second to last third Monday of a Middlebury semester began much like most of its predecessors: with a delirious 7:15 a.m. breakfast. Damn chemistry classes. Anyway, I was having a blast pacing back and forth in front of the Ross drink station trying to decide whether I wanted skim or two percent — all the while devoting most of my attention to something apparently very interesting on the ceiling — when I heard something weird. Someone much livelier than me had sat down and appeared to be having an animated conversation ... with absolutely nobody. YES! For once, the sleepwalking ginger doing some indoor stargazing was not the most awkward person in the room. A few seconds later, I realized that he was just a theater major reciting lines for a play, but I felt accomplished nonetheless.

As awkward as it is, the solitary conversation is not a huge issue around here. Aside from my dining hall encounter, the last time I heard a legit one-sided conversation was in Central Park at 2:00 a.m. Yet a different type of self-talking happens every day and carries with it an endless supply of awkwardness: leaving voicemail messages.

Leaving a voicemail is actually not inherently awkward. In an ideal world, the message-leaver briefly states their business concisely, leaves their number, says a nice/courteous/cute goodbye and hangs up the phone. If this is how your messages usually go, then you can probably stop reading now and move on to Birnbaum’s column to vent your anger at me for wasting your time. But if I’m correct in assuming that not everyone has reached such titan levels of eloquence, then let’s commiserate. That shit’s hard! When we call someone, we are prepared to have a conversation with that person, and when they don’t pick up, we have a measly, inadequate 10 seconds to change gears before that dreaded “beep.” Brevity is the first thing to go, resulting in a two-minute long rambling mess. Hanging up the phone is an even more serious issue, as failure to do so appropriately turns the sloppy two minutes into four even less comprehensible minutes. The listener must then listen to and decipher the entire rant to finally get the message that it is, after all, not going to work out between us.

The main cause of these issues is, of course, that leaving a voicemail ends up being a conversation with yourself. As a frequent perpetrator of inbox gluttony, my first bit of advice is to leave all conversation at the door — rhetorical questions and jokes should be strictly avoided. No matter how clever you are, the answering machine will not reciprocate, and you will just be talking to yourself like any old schizophrenic or theater major (oh snap). Good indicators of success in this department are the reactions of people who witness the message. If their response is “Wait ... was that a message?” you’re doing it wrong.

Second bit of advice: remember to HUTPI. And by that I mean, hang up the phone, idiot! In normal conversation, closure is reached when both parties have said “bye.” Again with the reciprocation issue: the machine will not tell you goodbye! This may seem obvious, but many times I have ended messages with “bye ... and yeah ... um ... yeah ... click.” Gross. Also, after a while, some answering services will ask if you need more time. If you have made it to this point, the answer is NO.

Finally, remember that voicemail messages are the most persistent and uncertain of all embarrassing social interactions. Rest assured, if you call your high school girlfriend on her house phone to notify her that, after your most recent encounter, she should probably get herself tested for strep throat, bad things will happen. Like her conservative grandparents coming home early and listening to the message before she does. And knowing that you will never escape that first impression. Crap.