You're NOT that cool!!!
February 14, 2007 4:08 AM   Subscribe

Why do you wear your bluetooth headset EVERYWHERE?

At the risk of being labeled chatfilter I have to ask- Do you wear your bluetooth phone headset all around town even when you're not talking on it? Do you go into stores with it on even though you're not talking on it? Do you talk to people in person while wearing it?

WHY do you do this? Are you THAT important that you have to be within one ring of answering your phone? Don't you realize how rediculous you look? I mean you look REDICULOUS!! Please enlighten us as to WHY you do this?
posted by Thrillhouse to Human Relations (25 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: please make the smallest effort to make your question adhere to the guidelines of the site.

 
I think it might be addictive.

I see a lot of people who have some sort of addiction to being 'in touch'. Even my girlfriend always has to have her cellphone with her and has to answer the home phone whenever it rings, otherwise she gets extremely anxious.

I'm the sort who stays in the bath if the phone rings, but when I'm at other people's houses (family, etc) people seem to freak out whenever the phone rings as if it's some really important event you can't afford to miss. I'd guess this is why.. and wearing the headset permanently probably becomes more convenient than rummaging through your pockets for your handset.
posted by wackybrit at 4:22 AM on February 14, 2007


Yeah, headsets suck, amIrite? I do on occasion, for the same reason I wear white socks under my sandals, and sometimes under dress shoes. It's convenient, and I don't really care what anyone shallow enough to be bothered by this thinks. If I was trying to impress a girl, I might worry about this kind of thing, but those days are far behind me.
posted by Manjusri at 4:25 AM on February 14, 2007 [1 favorite]


All posts which mis-spell 'ridiculous' in capitals should be deleted and reposted to Fark or Digg where they belong. Thanks.
posted by unSane at 4:29 AM on February 14, 2007 [9 favorites]


I always wonder the same thing? Isn't uncomfortable wearing something in your ear all day long! Unless you are really using the phone all the time, I think is useless.
I have a "wired" headset at home and one in the car and use it whenever I need my hands to be free....
Check this guys video about people with bluetooth headsets:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mrpissedoff&search=Search
posted by FLHunter3006 at 4:32 AM on February 14, 2007


I do it because I think I look awesome. Who's with me?
posted by Plutor at 4:46 AM on February 14, 2007 [5 favorites]


Do you take your watch off your arm when you aren't using it to get the time? I leave it on because that's where I need it to be when a call comes in.
posted by sexymofo at 4:57 AM on February 14, 2007


A chatfilter-y answer to a chatfilter-y question (did someone hack your account, dude?): I worked at Starbucks as an undergrad, and the folks who did this were almost universally the folks with a ridiculously inflated sense of self-importance -- rude to us, cutting other people in line, pealing out of the parking lot in impractically large SUVs -- so my guess would be the fact that they think it makes a statement, like "I'm so important if I so much as miss a call the world will stop." There: some empirical support for your, uh, hypothesis (that's what you wanted, right?).

On the other hand, maybe some people really can't miss calls. A lot of jobs are like that. And at least it's better than driving like a jerk while talking on a handset.
posted by AV at 4:59 AM on February 14, 2007 [1 favorite]


sexymofo:Do you take your watch off your arm when you aren't using it to get the time? I leave it on because that's where I need it to be when a call comes in.

What, you get calls on your watch?

Meanwhile, back on subject... if you took the headset off, then there's no point in even having it - you'd just have to fumble around in a pocket in order to retrieve it before answering a call, and you could just as easily fumble around in your pocket to get your phone out instead.
Leave it on, pretend you're some kind of space monkey superhero, or whatever.

And if you must repeat something in capitals, please ensure that you have spelled it correctly.
posted by Chunder at 5:02 AM on February 14, 2007


I interviewed someone for a job recently. She wore her Bluetooth headset through the whole interview.

She didn't get the job.
posted by FergieBelle at 5:29 AM on February 14, 2007 [2 favorites]


I keep mine on when I'm doing something that would make it a pain in the ass for me to dig out my phone. Example: driving. Cycling. Walking around town taking pictures. I love my bluetooth headset - it lets me keep my phone in my bag, and all I have to do to answer the phone when it rings is press a button near my ear. Easy peasy. If I could implant one into my brain, I would.

Having said that, this really goes beyond chatfilter. I'm looking forward to the sarcastic deletion message that gets attached to it.
posted by antifuse at 5:46 AM on February 14, 2007


As this is going to be deleted soon...

I wear a bluetooth headset constantly to get self-righteous fashion police & Miss Manners fascists to fall into fits of impotent rage.
posted by slimepuppy at 5:51 AM on February 14, 2007 [1 favorite]


I think someone doesn't have a date tonight. Your ex too busy talking to her new lover with her Bluetooth headset?
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:52 AM on February 14, 2007 [1 favorite]


Blame Carl's Jr
posted by Cool Alex at 5:53 AM on February 14, 2007


When I'm wearing a headset and not talking on it, it's because I am expecting a call or just took a call and that's the safest place to keep it until I'm back at my office. With it, I'm the guy who's sailing past you in the store, both hands free and annoying you with a one-sided conversation about server configurations. Without it, I'm the guy blocking you and eight others in the grocery aisle because I've got a basket in one hand, head cocked against shoulder and trying to manipulate a gallon of milk into the basket because the call I'd put most of my afternoon on hold for -- and yes it was indeed that important -- came in at just that moment.

When we're at the bar together I'll drink with you and bewail the increasing dissociation of humanity through technological mediation, and others' attempts to market the signifiers of the imposition of worktime on leisure as elite chic.

Mobile phones have freed me from spending ten to fourteen unproductive hours a day at my desk. I've made a deal with the devil and I'm sorry that it occasionally means I and my ilk are harshing your appreciation of the store's replay of Air Supply's Greatest Hits.
posted by ardgedee at 5:57 AM on February 14, 2007 [2 favorites]


Chatfilter.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:06 AM on February 14, 2007


There are lots of professions where being able to answer your phone immediately probably ends up earning them more money (real estate agents can do more business, a lawyer can bill more hours, tech-support people can be available 24/7, etc.), so I can understand why a lot of them wear Bluetoothes everywhere. I also understand why people wear them driving... isn't that safer than fumbling for a phone, or worse yet, getting limbs tangled up in a 'hands-free' device?

That said, I see a lot of people that are clearly not professionals who are not driving a car with their bluetoothes stuck on their ear (i.e., high schoolers or frat boys). I figure these are people I would rather not speak to anyway, so I try to look at their Bluetooth preoccupation as a Good Thing.
posted by gatorae at 6:07 AM on February 14, 2007


"We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."
posted by caddis at 6:10 AM on February 14, 2007


Damn caddis - you beat me to it. I wear my headset because it helps me support my dirty little Borg fantasy - where even though I'm gay I still think the Borg Queen is smokin' hot.
posted by matty at 6:17 AM on February 14, 2007


Thrillhouse, what bugs you most; the way the head set looks, what you perceive it means or that you believe the end user is a pompus ass? I have been on both sides of the fence over the years...
A) 2003 "Why is that guy wearing that Borg device in his ear and standing like a mannequin without making eye contact with anyone?"
B) 2004 "I like wearing my bluetooth headset in my ear all day to take 15 calls. I reallly do!"
C) 2005 "This thing hurts my ear."
D) 2006 " Yes son, you can have my old ear phone to play with outside."

In reality though the headset was designed to be worn all the time. However you spell it- to buy one and not wear it- that would be ra, re, ro, ru or ri diculous.
posted by bkeene12 at 6:20 AM on February 14, 2007


Because I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!
posted by ikkyu2 at 6:26 AM on February 14, 2007 [2 favorites]


UPS says my Jawbone is almost here so soon I can be REDICULOUS too!
posted by nicwolff at 6:30 AM on February 14, 2007


They do it because they can't wait for the day the Cybermen take them out of their human shells.
posted by drezdn at 6:30 AM on February 14, 2007


In reality though the headset was designed to be worn all the time.

Hence its dorkiness.
posted by caddis at 6:35 AM on February 14, 2007


When I see the Borg look of bluetooth headset, I generally feel sorry for that person either because he needs to be available to take a call from work on his phone leash or he is so insecure that he cannot miss a call. BUT, that is all in my head. The truth is I have no frigging idea why he is wearing it nor do I give a shit because HE is wearing it not me. Why would anyone care about someone else wearing a BT headset? With all these members crying about having one question per week or two or however long, this question seems like such a waste of a valuable asset that could have been shared with others.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 6:40 AM on February 14, 2007


I believe the term is cellborg (and any spelling variations you may come up with)
posted by iamkimiam at 6:59 AM on February 14, 2007


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