When Cellphones Make Us Crazy

Obsession and cellphones make for a happy couple. A happy, infuriating couple.

What do we do when obsession grabs us between the legs and pulls? Go with it? Resist it? Do we let it dictate our friendships? Our relationships? Does it simply make us too stupid to even notice our choices?

In his twenty-something years on earth, Avery Ward has had limited success with his dating relationships. As a student in psychology and a counselor-in-training, he feels it’s important to analyze the mistakes of his past before embarking on those same mistakes in the future. So when his psychology professor asks him to chart his obsessions throughout the semester, he doesn’t think he’ll have much to write about. He is, after all, cautious about his choices, and cautious people do not submit to obsessions.

That is, until he meets Melissa, the girl of his dreams, at a fraternity party one fateful night.

He has sixty seconds with her. That’s all. But that’s enough to figure out she is everything he wants in a partner. So when her cellphone rings, and she goes missing for the evening, he panics. He longs to spend more time with her. He searches all over for her. Where is she? He must find her. Can he find her? He panics. She is the woman of his dreams. Sixty seconds. He needs more.

Fortunately, serendipity kicks in when he runs into her at a local supermarket months later, giving him a second chance at a new first impression. But he has needy friends, and a cellphone, and so does Melissa, and even as he tries his hardest to kickstart the relationship that he failed to launch at the party, friends and cellphones become obsessed with both of them.

In the aftermath, Avery realizes getting the girl of his dreams may require choices that go beyond reason. But can a spiderweb of obsessive behaviors get him the girl of his dreams without wrecking his and everyone else’s life in the process?

Note: This version is a novella-sized remake of “When Cellphones Go Crazy” (2015).