Playing Phone Tag
A very delayed excerpt from my notes app circa. November 8, 2023
It's a Tuesday. Daylight savings is in full force. The sun now clocks out at 4:30 pm, and all remnants of toasty summer nights spent drinking spritzes on the sidewalk ricochet into faint memories. I’m slightly tipsy, riding off the high of a work happy hour where I nourished myself with prosecco, served in singles at 375ml a pop with a fogged champagne flute to match.
I had planned my day down to the last minute, as I like to do, venturing into Manhattan in the morning for work, only to return to my abode late that same evening. My night was booked. A work happy hour from 5–6 pm, then a date with a prospective French bachelor I met last weekend at a time yet to be confirmed.
One champagne flute of sparkling wine down, he bails, and so, now my night is open. The work happy hour pours over the allotted hour, the bar tab closes, and we all start to roll out.
I don't want to go home, but the evening’s social prospects look slim. I moved to Brooklyn a couple of months ago after four long years of living in the city,1 so before I trail back to the outer borough, I intend to exhaust all Manhattan plans. I compromise, catching the 4 train uptown from FiDi to 14th Street-Union Square, a seemingly neutral place to start.
With time to kill, waiting for new plans to brew, I grab my phone and start working through my Rolodex of friends back home. “Home,” as in Sydney, Australia, where I spent the better part of my life from ages 2 to 19. Post-19, I’ve been in a relatively happy and stable relationship with New York; the city and I are celebrating our five years this August.2
First up on the call-sheet is Josie, my childhood best friend. We grew up conjoined at the hip, meeting at an age (2.5 years old) before we could even form memories, thanks to a friendship between our parents. We chat about our love life, her newfound fashion inclinations, and a soon-to-be big move to Paris in pursuit of a Master’s degree at Sciences Po.3
After a generously brief conversation, we part ways. Next, I dial Ksenjia, a friend from high school, we’re both notorious for playing phone tag. She picks up hastily to tell me she’s at work. We chat for a minute and then say goodbye under the mutual agreement to deep dive into the intricacies of our lives at an unknown later date.
I call my friend Jasper; he lives in Melbourne and just launched a bespoke jewelry brand called agovia. He answers frantically—juggling Uni exams, a trip to India, and a COVID test. We have a brief but sufficient touch base of 9 minutes and 46 seconds, covering enough ground to keep us satiated till our next chat.
Now, I'm on a roll. I check the time zones. It's 12:45 am in London, too late to call my sister Mica, who moved there to study a Public Relations and Comms degree at UAL, and too late to return a missed call from my friend Omer (we share a birthday and are two Aries peas in a pod).
It’s 7:58 pm, the autumn-hued leaves are dangling off the trees, and the thermometer is clocking in at a relatively warm 19 degrees celsius (translation: it's not miserable to be outside). I walk past an inviting stoop, take a seat, and start writing about my seemingly wholesome evening (cue the notes app).
Then, it’s back to business. I call my friend Miki, who’s preparing to move to New York for a 6 month exchange, or what Americans like to call “study abroad.”4 She doesn’t answer. Instead, we exchange a few texts back and forth, to tide us over until our next call or, most likely, voice memo.
I jump between WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, with a lone FaceTime audio call here and there. Next, I dial my friend Alicia; we shared a chaotic three-month eat, pray, love gap year adventure back in 2018, but she’s on another call, so it fails.
Up next is my friend Doogs. Despite knowing each other since high school, our friendship was resuscitated when he moved to New York a couple of years ago. He answers, and we talk briefly, clocking another minute or so on the call log. He's at the Australian Zoo playing tour guide with some friends visiting from the States and can’t talk long.5
It’s 8:13 pm. I decide to concede and hang up the phone for the night. Time was successfully killed. Conversations were had, check-ins checked off, and touch-bases were made, all on a random Tuesday in November. The never-ending game of phone tag, now over (until tomorrow).
I’ve been living in Brooklyn for nearly 2 years in July I’ll officially hit this milestone
The city and I will be officially celebrating our 6 year anniversary this August, 2025
Josie’s a semester and a bit into her Masters and I visited her in Paris back in November 2024
Miki came on her 6 month exchange in New York city last year Jan–June and we indeed had a blast
Doogs now resides in London, he moved across the pond mid last year
How lucky you are!!!! New York City is such a beautiful city. I’m struck with envy as I read your well written brain dump.
Phone tag is the most unhelpful thing I’ve ever experienced and it’s has been nothing but anxiety driven. I wonder what it’s like to have a sister. I could never leave my sibling like that… alas, there will come a time when I need to. Unless my future husband chooses to live with him.
It’s such an Aries thing to keep the flame burning, the friendships alive, even when they’ve dwindled to a small spark. My dad is an Aries and he put up wallpaper in his office of NYC when I moved there in 2019. I never understood why until now. Whenever I bring him a coffee, I’m looking into some random apartment complex of people I will never meet. It’s slightly bitter.