On long phone conversations

This weekend I had with PA what is likely one of the longest phone conversations I've had in recent years. It went on for four hours. I've had really really long conversations with her in the past but that was probably the longest. MK's conversations used to be quite long too, though I doubt we ever made it to four hours. Two weeks ago I was proud for making it to 2.5 hours with NG but wow those were rookie numbers. I guess it's also about how often you talk to a person...if you talk to someone every week or so then a 2.5 hour conversation is quite long I mean how many things and topics can you even cover in that time for things that have changed in the last week? With MK and PA it was different because sometimes months go by before we catch up so it makes sense. Not that the conversations themselves involve catching up on things...they often evolve into philosophy, politics, economics, sociology and literally everything under the sun...this time it was organization strategic planning in HR, which was quite an achievement for me I'm proud to say thank you very much.

Back in the day in Kathmandu I used to be the king of cryptic calls with my parents buzzing around friends and I would use code to talk about all kinds of things for ours. And with JD too, but those were different times you can't really count in the list of 'longest calls' calls that go on for days and days. They're not calls, they're just...people being close to each other...Etcetera. And they don't count anyway.

It's weird and interesting because there are people -- a lot of them honestly, who I don't think I would have much to talk on the phone at all though I could spend days and days talking to them in person. And there are people that I feel like wow so weirded about calling entirely or talking in voice but whose company I really do enjoy. It's quite strange. Like how come I can talk to them as people and hang with them but when it comes to phone calls even the non-existent ones that involve saying 'hey I'm downstairs' sound so ...awkward. Perhaps because we've never talked before and that's a new context for our interactions. Still. I like to think that I could make real long conversations with anyone I am good friends or acquaintances with, but there's literally no way for me to prove that. It's a sad state of affairs really.

Speaking of phonecalls, an obvious discovery I made only recently but I should have figured out years and years ago is that commuting and grocery shopping hours are prime phone conversation times. Like with NG, everytime I go grocery shopping, I remember to call him...as a corollary since he's not around for the last couple of weeks I haven't actually gone for one of those long relaxing grocery trips because I don't have anyone to talk to. I remember Bhr in Dover used to talk to folks in Australia for hours everyday and got really impressed but then learned that it coincided with his conversation partner's commute in Australia. Which I guess is not quite disappointing, but still, it somehow feels like you're not giving someone as much value if you're not wasting your quality time, just killing the time you were going to waste anyway, you know?