To Whom Am I Speaking?

by Laura

One ringy-dingy...Two ringy-dingies...Is this the person to whom I am speaking?
--Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Operator

Let me start out by stating that our T never does this--asks who she's speaking with.  Well, rarely.  Usually the same three or four people talk to her, and it's only on those rare occasions when someone else needs to speak that the "who are you" issue comes into play.  And resolving it is not as simple as answering the question.

We've always had difficulty differentiating each other--that is, knowing who's out/around at any particular time.  We know who everybody is, and we know what everybody looks like.  But we never see each other.   So we hear a voice or feel an emotion and we don't know who it's coming from, unless it's so distinct that we can match it up with the knowledge we have of people.  The only exception would be that people who are very close to each other would be able to identify each other immediately.

But getting back to being identifiable by the T:  We've found that unless she's talked to someone at length, it seems to us that she doesn't know who she's dealing with.  It frustrates us when what's obvious to us isn't obvious to her.  We don't have a flagrant Sybil-like presentation at all--not that she expects us to, but our individual need for affirmation drives our desire that she should recognize anyone who comes out.  And this doesn't happen, so most of us have stopped trying.