A good retort.

Die painfully,
*Insert massive signature here*

As for assumptions, I’m assuming the host had an inkling she’d be texting for hours on end, that’s the reason Dana received the “get out” note.

And if they look at you and you’re texting, people will asume you’re not interested in interacting with them and won’t say hi either.

I also don’t trust her sense of what is “constantly” talking to one’s significant other.

If she’s being invited to a gathering and spending the ENTIRE evening texting others instead of engaging, of course you’re right. I don’t think there’s any indication that she is.

If I’m not being included in a conversation, I don’t think it’s necessarily my place to listen and try to learn something–although I obviously can’t be accused of eavesdropping since it’s a conversation that’s happening in public. I like the “private moment in a crowd” feeling, and I know other people do, too.

I also stand by the fact that even if Dana was being *insufferably* rude, the way the host handled it was psychotic.

Of course people mingle. But they don’t dance on my watch, that’s for damn sure.

I don’t interrupt people. I don’t talk to another person while I’m holding a conversation with someone.

Not on my phone, not to another person in the room, and not even using ESP.

Pay attention to the person you’re talking to.

Do you have to be sixty to believe in common courtesy?

I wouldn’t ask anyone to put their phone away, but texting repeatedly at the table during a conversation is a different story, and I’m not making that up. It was in the backstory!

Note to potential submitters: Make sure to include a highly detailed account of the situation, lest the CSI: Passive Aggressive Notes squad put together some crazy fiction to justify the insults they want to sling at you and anybody that disagrees with them.

It’s like complaining about how obnoxious it is that fathers video the birth rather than experiencing the moment. Some people really want a video document of the birth, or to get the news out to family and friends right away via text, and their priorities are their right and their business.

You know, maybe mom doesn’t WANT to hold the baby right away. She just pushed that kid out of her body. Maybe she wants a few moments to herself. Maybe dad is freaked out by this whole process and texting updates via his phone is what’s keeping him together.

It’s really not up to you to moralize about how people deal with a very individual experience.

Hope I made that clear enough, and that you’re a better idiot and learned something, though you’ve probably tuned out by now because you really had nothing new to add!

LMAO at all these people horrified that at a casual party, someone might tune out of the various conversations for a couple of minutes.

I’m sure every single one of you is a fascinating diamond every second of every minute of every day, but sometimes casual get-togethers involve a few people talking about a TV show they’re all following or a movie they all saw.

Should a partygoer listen, rapt, to every detail of The Real Housewives of Hullaboo Holler? Or might it be okay to enjoy her drink, text her SO, and wait for the conversation to come around to something she cares about again?

Jesus. I guess if someone at a party excused herself to go out for a cigarette or just some air, you’d all call for her head.

In the given group situation, texting is an anti-social behavior. While at the same time texting to/with an outside party is a social behavior.

They are matter and anti-matter. Bad things happen if they try to exist in the same space at the same time.

Odious, if that’s what happens at your cocktail/dinner/ get together parties, you either have boring friends, or have a really poorly planned guest list (examples: don’t invite your homophobic friend and your gay couple friends or your skin-head friend and your black friend to the same gathering).
Ideally, you’d have a couple of people looking at the CDs discussing the collection or music in general. A couple of people looking at the artwork discussing their impressions or art in general. That one jackass who thinks your fridge is open season, and a couple of people in the bathroom doing who knows what.
But no one sitting alone texting as if they’d rather be anywhere but there.

Don’t people “mingle” anymore? Dance? Talk to one another? Laugh and tell jokes?
Aren’t those the things we expect to happen when we invite friends over? Not fly away from each other as if our homes are full of dark matter and our guests are galaxies?

Hell, who’s going to call the cops on you if everyone is just sitting around texting? Who’s going to break your favorite lamp? Who’s going to knock over your aquarium? You call that a party?!