Louis Wise on hoarding your phone contacts

Louis Wise gives his contact list a much-needed spring clean

Louis Wise reviews his contact list

5 March 2020

A scroll through my phone offers more questions than answers these days.

Claudio, Clay, Clement; Domingo, Dominic and Dominik — my contacts list is a constant reminder I’ve ‘lived’. But who exactly is ‘Conor Boyfriend’ (not mine)? Who is ‘Nik Berlin’ (twice!)? Who are ‘Harry Canada’, ‘Canadian Actor’ and, simply, ‘Can’? I’d also like to get into the mystery of who ‘Day-Z’ is, but clearly there’s been enough D already.

I’m having a social and sexual clear-out, a kind of Marie Kondo once-over for the over-18s. I’ve deleted the dating apps for a bit, because I’d like to focus on the things that bring me joy. In every aspect of my life, you see, I accumulate and rarely chuck away. The best witness to this is my 75-year-old Irish neighbour, Gerry, who likes to pop by to survey the disorder of my flat; sometimes, the disorder of my life. ‘Why d’ye have so many feckin SHOES?,’ he said once, bewildered by seven variants of the same trainer on my floor. Another time, he collared me, pissed, in the corridor. ‘You’re a lovely man,’ he started, ‘but you do put it about a bit.’

I could hardly disagree. I also wasn’t ashamed of it, either. To my mind, one of the most obvious reasons for living in London is to accrue experiences of every sort. Who moves here to hide? However, what I will begrudgingly admit is that you do, after a while, get a bit tired of having all this stuff around you, physically or indeed mentally. You want to do a tight edit. My phone is now stuffed with more character, plot and wanton nudity than a series of Game Of Thrones. I need to say ‘dracarys’ to the lot.

So, goodbye to the friend I fancy that I fall out with once a year, and then invariably make it up again with to do it all over again. Goodbye to the couple I ‘hung out’ with once and who now text me, separately, when drunk. Goodbye to the ex who I always genuinely want to just be friends with, but who can never quite shift out of being an ex. I love you, truly, but why try? And finally, goodbye to that bright young thing I met and promised I’d party with wildly again. Babe, I won’t. I’m 12 years older than you, and the only rave I’ll do now is on the review pages of Amazon Prime. Ultimately, there are limits to being a hoarder. And yes, I said ‘hoar-der’, thank you.

MORE ABOUT

Louis Wise

Louis Wise on hoarding your phone contacts

Read More