The speakerphone paradox

[u/NeighborhoodJust1197]

I was at the pool today when a woman started having a conversation on her phone using the speaker.

I politely asked her if she could not use the speaker and pointed to my headphones.
She said, “I don’t have headphones.”
So I said, “You can just hold the phone next to your ear.”

She looked at me with a completely blank expression and said, “I’m on speakerphone.”
I said, “Well… that’s the problem.”

Apparently, we had reached the limits of modern technology.

[u/xocgx]

Kudos to you for even asking. When I was younger and didn’t care I said I would always say stuff to people if I was out with my family and they were being rude, but now that I’m older, I can’t be bothered and I don’t want a chance the person being a crazy person.

[u/AnonUserAccount → u/xocgx]

Make really loud passive-aggressive comments. That’s what I do.

[u/Emperorboosh → u/AnonUserAccount]

Just laugh when someone makes a comment. You’re not confronting them or imposing on the conversation. Makes it awkward when they realize you’re listening and laughing at them.

[u/Cultural_Orange2617 → u/Emperorboosh]

I live in a first-floor apartment, right by the driveway. The number of times I’ve been woken in the middle of the night by people keeping their hazards on while parked in a parking space, people having deafening conversations, a guy taking a dump below my window (his straining woke me) (it’s not even a bad neighborhood!), radios / phone conversations in the car with the windows up but the volume so high that I could hear every word, headlights pointed in my window while they smoked and laughed and waited for whoever.

Sometimes, I’m good with just going out and asking them to stop. I assume they don’t realize that I can hear their phone conversation from inside my apartment. But people standing six feet from my open window, having a very loud but very personal conversation, they get different treatment. First I ask nicely. Then I get weird. I once set my Bluetooth speaker on the window sill and played a true crime podcast that was describing murder details, loud enough to cover their voices, and got back into bed. They lasted about two more minutes before I heard one of them say “this is fucking WEIRD” and then they left. Another time, two guys standing right there having “locker room talk” about recent dates. I called out three times for them to please go elsewhere. Nothing. So I got up, opened my window ALL the way, put my elbows in the windowsill and watched them like I was watching a show, lights off. Eventually they saw my face in the window, lit up by their headlights, and I said “fascinating”. They both jumped and said “what the fuck”. I told them that if they were going to have a conversation outside my window, then it must have been an invitation to join, right?

[u/weebeekayway → u/Cultural_Orange2617]

I love both of these scenarios so much!

[u/MechanicalTurkish → u/Cultural_Orange2617]

“his straining woke me”

What a fuckin thing to wake up to lmao

[u/Cultural_Orange2617 → u/MechanicalTurkish]

You are very much not wrong. I thought one of my dogs was having a problem, but they were both asleep next to me.

[u/pacopac25 → u/Cultural_Orange2617]

You just threw in the guy taking a dump below your window like it was some banal detail?🤣

You missed what may have been your one chance in this lifetime to casually open the window and do the Bugs Bunny "ehhh, whatcha doin, Doc?"

[u/Cultural_Orange2617 → u/pacopac25]

I mean, we barely interacted. I asked if he could please at least be quieter about it, or something. “I’m trying!” Okay, good luck! 🤷‍♀️ I don’t fucking know. I assume a person wouldn’t just drop trou outside of an apartment without some desperate need, and I wasn’t about to get closer to the situation!

(Also, just for clarity, it’s about ten feet from my window to the ground, so it’s not like he was creeping around. I think he just had an emergency and hid behind the bushes.)