The iPhone Effect

I am painfully shy when it comes to girls. You wouldn't notice, however, unless you locked me in an interrogation room with an attractive female stranger. Without a beverage to sip, a movie to comment on, or a wingman to make me look cool, my level of interesting sinks like a communist submarine. Because of people like me, people who need an auxiliary object to validate themselves in public, John Casey, an Apple systems analyst and probably also one of those people, came up with the idea that became a reality that became a sensation, the iPhone.

Having spent all my cell phone owning years using the cheapest hunk of brain tumor inducing plastic available, my switch to something more hip was the virtual equivalent of leveling up. Originally, "more hip" for a cheapskate like me didn't mean the iPhone.

I went to the AT&T store with visions of purchasing an inexpensive but nifty phone. It didn't take long for me to realize that such a thing does not exist. When it comes to tech, you're paying for cool and let's face it, the iPhone is the king of cool. Sure, Blackberry, you might be prom king, but iPhone is Brad Pitt and when Brad Pitt is at the party prom kings don't see any action.

I couldn't settle for anything less, like many before me succumbing to the star of Seven Years in Tibet. No longer was I the guy sporting a Go phone similar in size and sex appeal to a Fig Newton; I became cool.

With a new auxiliary object in tow, I was ready to talk to girls.

The iPhone Effect: A Case Study

I found myself at a party over the weekend. As the shindig wound down, the hormonal paired off and disappeared, the virtuous, the taken and the ugly remained, schmoozing while rides arrived and the booze lingered.

I plopped down on the couch waiting for my friends to gather themselves before the walk home. On the couch next to me, lounged a girl (either on team virtuous or team taken) with her friend (team ugly) smoking what appeared to be a burnt pinch of basil out of a pipe. With nothing interesting to say, I minded my own beeswax, twiddling my thumbs pretending I was less aware than I really was.

Within minutes, it happened. Team virtuous turned to me, smiled a frighteningly attractive smile and asked,

"Excuse me. My friend is coming to pick us up. Do you know what street we're on?"

Immediately I envisioned the way this conversation could go had I not recently purchased an iPhone. I would answer hurriedly and without confidence,

"No, sorry."

She would thank me and our lives would go on.

However, I was cool.

"Excuse me. My friend is coming to pick us up. Do you know what street we're on?"

"Yep, hang on a sec."

Bingo. iPhone, GPS, current location.

"Church Street." I proclaimed. Hell. Yes.

"Oh thank you sooo much! Do you want to smoke with us?"

I thought of my future with this girl, the immediate future, the near future, the distant future. I thought of us happily married with three kids, living in suburbia, smoking basil, parsley, cracked pepper. Whatever team virtuous wanted to put in that rainbow pipe of hers, we would smoke... together. But the image of some sad spice rack sans basil got the better of me and I declined. Nonetheless, for that instant, I was cool. The iPhone gave me that instant.

Sometimes I wonder about that future the iPhone gave me the opportunity to realize. It would be pretty cool to look at the infinite alternate universes the iPhone provides. But I shouldn't despair, there's probably an app for that.