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Image: Skeletor holding up a relatively huge 80s/90s cell phone with an aquatic mutant character name Mer-Man behind him.
Caption: Start every phone call with "my phone is about to die" that way you can hang up on them whenever you want to.
And hang up while you're speaking, just to make the lie more convincing.
Why lie? Just say you're tired of talking. Life's too short for bullshit.
LPT or masking tip? Masking makes things more bearable but I find it often prevents being able to make a genuine connection. I can mask fairly well for a couple hours but by then I'm exhausted. Trying to mask with people I see regularly inevitably ends up in ruined relationships due to internalized guilt from lying and them recognizing me as a liar. It saves time and stress to just be honest, even if that means coming off as acerbic or just eccentric.
LPT or masking tip?
More like a joke, but I bet the tip would work with people that historically do not respect boundaries but you still have to maintain a working relationship with. But yeah, I've been on a de-masking kick lately, and it's so much nicer. Less stress and I start building relationships with people I can be myself around.
I just dont answer calls from anyone other than my girlfriend or closest friends and they know me well enough that I can just say that I can't talk rn and they'll understand
Good guy Skeletor.
Drop mid sentence. No one would interrupt themselves, it makes no sense.
... or ... how about never starting the call in the fist place?
Let's call it a preemptive hang up.
That strategy hasn't let me down yet.
Better yet, tell them you're dying, and if you need to, fake your death, move to Argentina, make that dive bar you always dreamt about.
How about starting the call by informing them they are dying. If they have questions just enforce your predictions to get out of the call.
I think those are threats...
I think most people would understood them as such.
But when they realise it's already too late. They should have texted first.
Pro tip don’t hang up, put your phone into airplane mode. That way they get the notification that the call dropped and weren’t hung up on.
If I dismiss the call or never answer it I have a redirection to an impossible/non-existent phone number for over two decades now.
The nice lady voice informs them that the number they dialed does not exist. Ppl who know, know for a reason, others better text or email me.
Pro tip:
Disable GSM (2G), disable WCDMA (3G), disable VoWiFi, disable VoLTE, disable VoNR.
You still get access to mobile data via 4G and 5G, but you just disabled all technology which allows phone calls. It's now literally impossible.
A less stupid method:
Check call forwarding settings, copy the number from "when unreachable" to "when busy". If everything goes right, the caller gets "The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable..." or a similar message when you decline a phone call. For me this breaks with VoLTE enabled, and for the caller it seems as if it just kept ringing. It does however work with GSM-only.
Drawback: This method requires MMI to access call forwarding settings. MMI is only available on 2G and 3G, so your carrier needs to have those. But they may have alternative method for setting call forwarding, or perhaps there's some way MMI (and USSD codes) may work over IMS (the carrier would need to support that). I don't know, I am dumb.
Well... I am using the first method. I usually have a secondary cellphone with me, as a backup, so I could use that for emergency calls ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Or... just don't pick up. It's a lot easier.
But like this I just get SMS that somebody tried to call me without any network disruptions arising from possible handover to GSM if VoLTE doesn't seem preferable by my phone for some reason.
I am trying to think out a TL;DR explanation.
Mobile data is my only internet connection. My carrier only has towers in 1800MHz band but partners with other carrier which has faster network speeds for coverage extension (not load balancing!!). If I get anything else than 1800MHz, I am connected to tower owned by the other carrier, and get much higher speeds. E.g.: 25-40Mbps instead of 0.2-3Mbps.
On Qualcomm there's no way to force specific network bands without root.
I can force it to not use 1800MHz even in area where my carrier has coverage by temporarily blocking the signal by putting my phone into faraday cage for a few seconds. This usually needs trial-and-error as it's made to strongly prefer the carrier-owned towers.
As soon as I take out the phone and see e.g. 2100MHz, I need to keep some traffic flowing 24/7 which won't allow it to switch back to my carrier's towers.
This can be done in 2 ways: Connecting to VPN by using OpenVPN TCP (doesn't work with UDP) or pinging something 24/7 every second in Termux.
As soon as that network traffic stops, the phone tries to switch back to the preffered towers, those owned by my carrier. This may take as little as 5-10 seconds.
VoLTE calls won't disrupt this, but switching to GSM will as it needs to switch towers, and there's no way it's connecting back as I wish. Additionally, it possibly killed some upload/download I had running.
Of course, I can just keep it VoLTE-only, but switching that on takes like 5 seconds when needed, so why not block all calls by default?
About the "Faraday cage": Nothing fancy. Turned off microwave oven is enough. I also took a plastic bag and taped it over with 2 layers of aluminum foil. That also works. Though it still isn't perfect if I wanted to fully block all signals, but that's not the point.
You're WAY overthinking this. Do Not Disturb.
Even simple lies like this stress me out. My method is to just abruptly say, "sorry, I've got to go" and hang up. If asked about it later, "I'd really rather not talk about it." They pretty much never ask about it later though. Zero lies, zero stress, and you don't have to keep talking on the phone.
Me tired as hell:
Yeah, gotta go, I've had enough.
Thank god my friends understand xD
With close ones 'can't talk/communicate anymore' works, they met me before.
Yeah, me and you must be one of the weird ones who hate to lie. Sometimes when in telling the truth I unintentionally sound really guilty though!
That 'aquatic mutant character' is Mer-Man you heathen
Origin story: the only survivor of a mass Murmaider (yes, I know the references are two decades apart, and in the wrong order).
Thanks for the reminder of that song
Updated! Thanks 😀
Make sure to turn it off so it doesn't ring when they try and call you back
Airplane mode should be more than enough to achieve that.
Just permanently block their number to avoid having the problem ever again.
I also change the contact name. I change it to a code I can figure out. That way, when I see the name, it doesn't trigger the emotional displeasure of thinking about them. I also put a 'z' in front of their name so it is listed all the way at the bottom, making it so I barely every see it anyway.