Cell Phone Psychology

Hypothetically speaking...

What if the frequency with which you changed your cell phone number said something about where you are in your life? I thought about this the other day when I caught up with an old friend from high school who asked if I still kept in touch with another old friend.

As I was describing what I knew friend #2 to be doing these days, I told friend #1 that she should call her because she still had the same cell phone number as she did in high school (over ten years ago now). And as I thought about that a little more, it dawned on me that in a lot of ways, it was a metaphor for her life. She hadn't changed since high school either -- still doing the same things, in the same place, with most of the same people; still carrying the same emotional baggage, stuck in the same place she was over ten years ago with no real motivation to change.

Then I posed this question to my best friend, who thought it may have some merit. She told me about a friend of hers who had gotten into some business trouble over the past year and his rapid climb up the financial ladder seemed to be headed for a steep slip and fall. She had tried reaching him over the course of three months or so, and every month she called, his number had been disconnected -- changed. So, when we talked about this cell phone psychology theory, it led her to ask, "what (or better yet, who) is he running from?"

Then there's my best friend herself, who I affectionately describe as the black Carrie Bradshaw. She doesn't engage in casual sex by any stretch of the imagination ala Carrie, but she does meet men just about anywhere. I recall the "at the stoplight" and "the misdialed phone number" incidents as two of the most memorable. But I digress. She recently changed her cell phone number and everyone from my husband to her classmates to old church friends asked her which guy she was trying to get rid of.

So, I thought about my own cell phone number. The last time I changed it was shortly after I got engaged. That was over five years ago. New status, new number, I guess. And, while I have changed phones in last five years, the number has stayed the same. That, too, can be seen as a metaphor. Some things have changed. I took on a new job, finished my master's, moved into a new place, had a baby. So there have been changes. But the foundation of all of that -- my relationship with my husband -- is the same. And even though the phones may have changed, the foundation of how you reach me is still the same.

When was the last time you changed your cell phone number? Is your life changing with it?