DISTURBING HEADSETS

I have a pretty cool mobile phone. I got one that has a GPS function on it so I can look up maps and figure out where I am and get directions and all that good stuff. So, probably because it's a fairly cool and somewhat expensive phone, it came with one of those bluetooth headsets.

I've never used it before, mostly because the only people I've ever seen using them were the worst kinds of salespeople. You know, the ones who give salespeople a bad name. Self-important people who drive BMWs and think they're really cool. I never really saw a reason for one.

But then, of course, I noticed that they wear them a lot on, say, 24. Or Chuck. Or whatever spy-type show you watch.

Still didn't think much of it.

However, I have a really long commute home from the office, and occasionally I think it would be good to talk to someone on the phone for one reason or another. And I've had moments where I thought, hmm, I should go dig up that headset.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting up with some people. I'll be driving to pick them up. So all of a sudden the headset seems like a good idea. So I charged it up, and just called someone to test it out.

Here's the thing: using it is really disturbing.

When you talk to a person, you see the person, and you're talking to them. When you talk on the phone, you still have the feeling of talking to an object, which is a surrogate "them." Conference calls, calls coming through the radio of your car, whatever--still, the voice is coming out of an object, and you are directing your voice toward that object, so you still have that sensation of a two-way conversation with an object.

Put an earpiece in, and suddenly, the feeling of having an object you're communicating with is removed. I'm not looking at a phone and talking to it. I don't really feel the earpiece, it just seems like the voice is inside my head.

Now I know how crazy people feel.