JANA HOCKING: The night my date took charge and forced me to stop doing the one thing that EVERYONE does

Two weeks ago, my ex invited me to a belated birthday dinner. We’ve managed to do this almost impossible thing of remaining good friends and I’m glad we did.

I could tell he was putting a lot of effort into this dinner (mainly by his literal “Jana! I’m putting a lot of effort into this dinner!!”), so I put on a disguise and cheered myself up.

He picked me up in an Uber and told me the place he was taking me was a little “unique.” So when we walked through a hidden door onto a busy street, I was intrigued.

I quickly realized this was a place I followed on Instagram for their amazing deconstructed Martinis. O happy days! We headed straight to the bar to try one first.

But as the saying goes… martinis are like tits. One is not enough and three is way too many. So we didn’t go too far.

After feasting on this multi-faceted cocktail and my ex with his whiskey sour, we were ushered into the dining room by a very classy looking waiter.

We sat down and ordered a bottle of champagne, because who doesn’t want to make the most of a late birthday dinner. The waiter returned with two glasses of champagne and a small case – which seemed a bit random to me.

He asked for our two phones, which he then put in the case, closed it and assured us that we could get them back at the end of the meal.

Um… excuse me… what?

My ex looked at my shocked face and laughed. “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about that.” Now I should probably give you a little background on our previous relationship to make it all make sense.

One of our main problems when we were dating was that we were very addicted to our phones. Instead of fucking early in the morning, we would wake up and immediately reach for our phones for our scroll.

He was a businessman, so it drove me crazy every time he interrupted our conversations for a work call, and romantic road trips always turned into boring conference calls. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the arguments we’d have about Instagram.

The date was with her ex boyfriend – for his birthday – she said phones were a huge killer in their relationships

It’s safe to say that our phones were our biggest romance killer and probably played a bigger role than we’d like to admit in our breakup.

So here we were, sitting across from each other, with no distractions in sight, and just our well-being for company. I’d like to say I handled it like a champ, but you’d be surprised how hard it can be to go without your phone for a few hours.

The conversation part went well, we both have the gift of the gab, and it had been a while since we had properly caught up, so we barely took a breath between topics.

But the first dilemma arose when they brought out a beautifully prepared platter of oysters to accompany our champagne. I grabbed my phone to take a photo of this ridiculously elegant entrance, but it wasn’t there.

Ok, I thought, that’s ok. It’s probably a bit superficial to take a photo of it anyway. I repeated a very cringe mantra to myself: “stay in the moment Jana, stay in the moment” and returned to the juicy conversation we were having.

Then I had to go to the bathroom. I took my phone back but yes, you guessed it, it wasn’t there. Gaaaaah.

Now, I like to think that most women will understand the importance of a phone during a bathroom break. I would normally text one of my girls to update her on our catch-up, or do a quick Instagram scroll, or anything really to pass the time before going to get the toilet paper.

The first dilemma arose when they brought out a beautifully prepared platter of oysters to accompany our champagne. I grabbed my phone to take a photo of this ridiculously elegant entrance, but it wasn’t there.

I realized that it was actually quite embarrassing to not even be able to manage a break without my phone. So I took a deep breath, looked in the mirror and walked away.

Everything was fine until my ex then had to go to the bathroom. It took off and I sat there staring into space. We were between courses, so I didn’t even have anything to snack on. Instead of scrolling through Instagram, I just looked at people.

I felt strangely uncomfortable. It felt like I was prying into other people’s private dining experience, so I tried not to attract anyone’s attention while waiting for my ex to come back. He laughed when he came in and said I looked lost. Cringe. To be honest, I was.

The rest of the night was absolutely blissful once I resigned myself to the fact that my phone was no longer within reach and leaned into the experience. And can I just say it was so much fun to catch up properly without any distractions. By the end of the evening, I felt like I really knew him again. We had good, deep and interesting conversations and we didn’t deviate once.

I had his attention the entire time, and he had mine too.

Well…until a surprise birthday cake came out with a candle, and I once again reached for my phone for a boastful photo. Slight hiccup on my part, but then we immediately returned to devoted attention.

So after surviving this truly horrible ordeal (okay, maybe I’m overreacting), I learned two things about myself:

1. I’m completely addicted to my phone.

2. I have to say that I now firmly believe in banning telephone calls during appointments.

Yes, I am committed to making sure I keep my phone in my purse and stay present and in the moment. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s amazing how engaged you get when you’re not distracted by that vibrating brick usually attached to your hand.

However, I will always bring my phone with me. This Wordle is not going to work alone!