Ask JT! Strictly Textual Relationships, and How to Handle your Asshat Uncle

As always, your friendly neighborhood bartender is taking a break from his wild dating life to tackle your questions with his patented blend of advice and adult beverages. So slide on up to the bar my friends. Now, what can I get you?

Hey JT!

I’m one of your under-appreciated-but-still-here lady readers. I wanted to ask your advice on a topic you’ve touched on once before.

I have a widely varied group of friends - male, female, gay, straight, and everything in between. I happen to be a heterosexual woman myself, not that it matters, though, because this isn’t a question about romance.

One thing that I’ve noticed a lot of my friends do is constantly be on their phones, texting, tweeting, what have you, when we’re all hanging out. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be lost without my smart phone, too, but it made me think about the question you got a while ago from the guy who wondered if he really was a douchebag, as a date had called him, since he was on his phone a lot. I’ve mentioned to my friends repeatedly that it makes me feel weird, and I refuse to be one of those people who is just staring at their phone while with a group of people, no one actually interacting in real life. The result? I’m the only one not on my phone, so I stare awkwardly out the window.

I know these are my friends and not people I’m dating, but don’t the same rules apply in this case? When people are hanging out socially, isn’t it time to put the cell phones away?

Siri is Merely Crappy-ass Rot, Dude

We live in a golden age of technology. But if history has taught us anything, it’s where there’s gold, there are a**holes aplenty who will line up to get the most of it, humanity be damned.

I can see the scene you’ve just described perfectly, SIMCARD, because I see it every day in crowded cafes in New York. A groups of friends sitting around a table, but instead of talking, they’re all staring like zombies at their phones, ignoring each other.

This worries me for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one is I’m genuinely concerned that people are going to lose the ability to communicate with each other. Why do I worry about this?

Because it’s happening to me. I can feel it. And chances are it’s happening to a lot of you out there, too.

Raise your hand if you would rather wait in line at a crowded store during the holidays instead of buying the gifts online.

No one?

Okay, how about this. Raise your hand if you would rather have an email conversation with an insurance agent, or a telephone conversation.

Most of you said email, right? Who wants to talk to an insurance agent?

Okay, final question: Raise your hand if you text your best friend more often than you call them.

How about your mom? Your sibling? Your significant other?

That dude that you ride like a pogo stick every couple of months if you’re both single? (Well, actually, you’re forgiven for that one.)

Point is, we’re quickly moving towards a society where people don’t talk to each other anymore, preferring to communicate via words on a screen.

“But wise, nubile, sinewy JT,” you protest, “Isn’t it a good thing that we don’t have to wait online in crowded stores or talk to insurance agents in real time?”

Sure, of course it is. I hate crowds as much as the next geekily esoteric gay advice columnist, but there’s a flip side to the benefit of cyber-shopping. Utilizing technology is very much about YOU. Everything is done to YOUR convenience, on YOUR schedule. For those of you over, say thirty-five or forty, you’re okay, because you grew up in a world that used to be without such convenience (but sadly, also without Glee).

But for those of us who barely remember the world pre-Internet (if indeed we can remember it at all), when we come of age and inherit the earth, we’re all going to have some serious conflict-resolution problems. When you grow up in a world where everything happens on your time, or if when you disagree with someone’s point of view you simply hurl despicable insults from a comfortable place of anonymity, having to deal with unpleasant encounters in real life is going to be very, very difficult.

The inconveniences of life -- waiting in line at the supermarket, dealing with your annoying coworker, having to navigate past those f**king kids who insist that your stoop is a viable place to sit all day -- are actually good things, because, well, they teach us how to deal with other people. When we shut ourselves in and shut everything else out, poor social skills are inevitable, and what are we going to do when our world leaders don’t know how to handle something as simple and uncomplicated as a nuclear arms treaty?

In short, the world is doomed.

Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, right, your friends. Yeah, they’re lame. You should totally do something about that.