"Con"tacts
September 15, 2022•375 words
[073] ... [General]
One of my friends never picks calls from unknown numbers as a rule. He finds it convenient, considering anyone not in his contacts list to be necessarily a spam caller. A few days back he received one such and was about to cancel, and I suggested to answer and block it later if matching his criteria. The caller turned out to be his friend from abroad and here for a holiday, with whom he had stayed a few years back, and was trying to get in touch to drop in before returning. He was disappointed that his previous calls went unanswered. As in all stories, everything turned out well finally, the better part being my friend acknowledging the mistake that otherwise would have soured relationship.
I don't see why an unknown number be always treated dubiously. Many times someone known, but not in touch, gets our number through a common contact, or one of own family might be trying to call through someone else's phone if their phone is lost or has gone dead. The very idea of owning a device is lost if not reachable.
It's not like email from unknown senders sometimes baiting you with links to cause harm. We can always cut spam calls short and block.
I use a secondary address book app to keep many numbers which don't need to be part of the main list (that sometimes becomes a liability on messaging apps that treats everyone in your list to be near and dear ones). I find it better than deleting, and easy to access some professional workers like painters or plumbers who we need occasionally or some old colleagues and others previously in touch. We can call such directly from the App, and when they call back, add their name under Information. Such names become searchable under the recent list, without adding to the contacts list.
No doubt the means to the end varies with individuals. The app I referred to is simply called Address book on Android. A pretty old build that hasn't seen updates for very long. Perhaps since there's nothing more to add, but still available. I find it pretty useful to create categories, export to CSV and such useful features.