At the end of ‘Steve Jobs’, the Michael Fassbender movie, there is a heartfelt moment as Steve picks talking to his daughter over starting his presentation on time (something we learned earlier in the movie that Steve is borderline obsessed about).
By stalling the presentation and continuing to talk to his daughter, he was saying to Lisa – you are more important to me.
I’m not sure if this happened in real life but it’s a nice sentiment and I think we see parallel moments in our everyday lives.
Every time someone stops listening to you to check their phone, they’re saying it’s more important to me to pay attention to my phone than you.
Or take poor Susan for example who is slowly but surely learning that she ranks quite low on Davina’s importance scale.
She could understand the first phone call Davina took, it was a life or death situation. Of course the peril of death trumps making small talk with Susan.
But to stop listening to Susan to find out her dry cleaning was ready.
Or when Susan was halfway through her story and Davina flagrantly stopped listening to text her friend to confirm the time of an event.
That one stung.
It’s slowly dawning on Susan that Davina will only listen to her as long as nothing more important comes up.
Thomas Duggan 