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When was the last time you actually made a phone call willingly? Honestly, take a minute to think about it. Nowadays, most of the phone calls we make are accompanied by a lingering feeling of absolute drudge – horror, if you will. Calling a friend you haven’t spoken to in a few months reeks of potential awkwardness. Calling your Mom on the commute home means you’re just asking for the entire #37 bus to know the status of your relationship. Calling the help desk at your company will lead to an out-of-body frustration level resulting in you to verbally castrating some poor guy in India (Maybe just me? No, definitely not just me).
And because we don’t willingly make phone calls anymore, our contact list goes undetected for years. It grows and breeds like the flavors of Halo Top taking over the frozen novelties aisle. When we were young, the person who had the most MySpace friends was inevitably the coolest. Same with AIM buddies, BBM contacts, and eventually Facebook. But today, human fat is just like our own fat: we need to freeze it off.
This is why, every fall, I’m starting a tradition of an annual contact list purge. Fall is the perfect time for a contact purge because we can rid ourselves of the fringe folk from seasons past. Like that girl in a really cute dress from Hailey’s cousin’s coke dealer’s birthday party this summer or your great-great-great-grand little’s 19-year-old boyfriend you met at Homecoming. I’ve decided to choose a lucky few from my contact purge and write a little story about them. A little obituary if you will. RIP my long, very lost brothers and sisters. I have no idea how long I knew you.
Cheese Pledge – Ah, Cheese Pledge. Short, a little stumpy, with glasses and all. Cheese was a freshman when I was a senior. He was in my ex-boyfriend’s fraternity, which I rationalized was COMPLETELY normal to hang out at, even after we broke up and hadn’t made eye contact for months. I don’t exactly remember why he was called Cheese, but I think it had to do with putting a spray can of Cheez Whiz in a microwave on high for nine minutes.
Taylor Neighbor – I first ran into Taylor neighbor when I was taking the trash out one Sunday night in February. He lived across the hall from me. From there, he and I exchanged pleasantries. Hellos in the hallways, how are you’s in the laundry room, the normal stuff. That’s until St. Patrick’s Day 2016 when I blacked out and banged on his door at 1 p.m. asking for his number. Mid-way through giving it to me, I kindly asked if I could use his bathroom to throw up. He let me use it, despite my apartment being directly across the hall. When I found Taylor Neighbor in my phone, I smiled. I knew he had to go, but it did make me think of all drunken lust affairs past. Ah, to be young again.
Anna Palm Springs – I do remember Anna very well actually. It all started when my friend and I were on a girl’s weekend in Palm Springs. We stayed at a very ritzy hotel and made friends with Anna and her girlfriend. During our 4th hour of drinking together, Anna admitted that she initially did not want to sit next to us (assigned pool chairs, duh) because we had the look of being incredibly basic and loud. She was right. Anna promised me she’d go to the Backstreet Boys concert with me in Vegas. Surprisingly, it never happened. I’m also 97 percent sure she wanted to have a threesome. Bye, Anna.
All of my Hinge Contacts – I imagine most guys have the typical, “Rachel Wisconsin,” “Sarah Bottled Blonde,” and “Sumitra Hot Indian” contacts in their phone. But I have no idea if other girls stored their dating app suitors as “Eric Hinge,” “Tom Hinge,” “Joey Hinge,” “Tim Hinge,” and “Jeremy Hinge” like I did. Anyways, I hope they all found the Lauren B’s to their Arie’s. It was also a great moment when I had to ask myself, “who the fuck is Mike Hinge?” when I realized he’s my current boyfriend of two years.
All of my Junior League of Chicago Contacts – Remember that time I moved to a new city knowing zero people and wanted to pay over $1,000 a year to make friends? Yeah, that lasted about three weeks until I realized there is not enough Lilly Pulitzer, Midwest niceness, and chambongs in the world to make me go back. Plus, my name wasn’t Katie, I don’t have a hot brother, and I didn’t go to Michigan, so I’m not sure I would have made the cut in the end anyway. (Although one girl labeled “Brie JLC – BRIE CHEESE” did make me rethink her purge for a millisecond.)
Rá Guy With Blue Shirt and White Jeans – Now, I knew immediately that I was on Adderall when I put this guy in my phone due to my rigorous attention to capitalization on his name. Does the accent on his two-letter name suggest that he’s gay? Probably. From this logic, I could narrow it down to the past three years of Gay Pride Chicago and a few really great drunken nights. But in the end, I could not remember Rá. This one was especially hard for me to purge because we must have bonded over something incredibly vain or insulting to someone. And those are my best types of friends..
Respond
Stalker tip- you can sometimes get the first and last name of an unknown contact by searching for friends using contacts on snapchat.
This is how I am now married to ‘Katie with the nce boobz’
You can also find people on Facebook this way.
Getting purged from your significant other’s contacts. PGP
Ah, “TJ Drug Dealer”. A friend of a friend of a friend who totally “wasn’t a drug dealer, he just got weed for friends sometimes” who also unsolicitedly offered to sell me oxy within five minutes of meeting him. There’s no room for you in my list anymore, TJDD, but if I ever see you at Red Rocks I’d be glad to do business.
This is a hill I will die on, I typically call my friends who live in other cities once a month and catch up, conversations lasting from 5 minutes to an hour have happened.
Call me a psycho but phone calls > texts 10 out of 10 times. Keeping relationships takes work
I have these phone conversations, but they usually involve alcohol.
I know this isn’t the point but how are you spending over $1000 on Junior League?! Even in DC it’s less than $300 a year.
The monthly purge of every contact with “Tinder”, “Bumble”, “Hinge” ect ect is a MUST for anyone actively dating because you never know when you’ll get serious, forget about your past shame and then get hit up randomly in the middle of the night unprovoked. Mental gymnastics with the new boo are nothing you want to wake up to
I always try for first & last names as a rule. All of my dating app matches get a B for a last name, even if I learn their last name it gets added after the B so I can easily sort them.
Excellent take. I too shall now partake in a contact phone list purge.
If you’re on the phone with India and you don’t have an overwhelmingly frustrating experience, did you even call the Help Desk?
I just went through my contacts and was amazed at how many old bumble and hinge contacts o have that never went anywhere. This was much needed
Hot take: I’d rather call someone than wait on him or her to text or email back. Gives me instant gratification and I can move onto the next thing.
Agreed. Texting is stupid. I know everyone thinks it’s cool and funny to be able to ignore someone but it’s really a trash move so if I need an answer I’m going to call you. Sitting and texting back and forth for an hour as opposed to just calling and figuring it out in 5 minutes makes absolutely no sense.
I have a week expiration date if I don’t here from you within a week; you get cut.