A BlackBerry Throbs, and a Wonk Has a Date
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
Published: May 30, 2004
WASHINGTON
A YEAR ago, Tripp Donnelly saw his BlackBerry as a social liability an accessory with all the sex appeal of a pocket protector. But now the gadget makes the rounds with Mr. Donnelly, 31, even when he sheds his jacket and tie for a night of barhopping or clubbing. He started keeping it with him when he realized he was missing social e-mail from the growing population of Washington women who were carrying BlackBerries themselves.
"It's made it much more efficient, much more direct," Mr. Donnelly said of the effect on his love life. "A 15-minute phone conversation can be abbreviated into a 10-second, one-sentence e-mail."
Mr. Donnelly, a Clinton White House staff member who is now a managing director of the wireless communication company InPhonic (which once distributed BlackBerries, but no longer does), said he uses his BlackBerry to correspond with "a handful" of women in Washington and beyond. In one recent exchange, he asked a Bush campaign worker out on a first date.
He: "You and me tomorrow night dinner." She: "Sure." And that was that.
Flirtatious wireless messages are not entirely new. Japanese and Scandinavian teenagers pioneered phone-screen chattering in the 1990's, and businesspeople in the United States quickly learned to put the BlackBerry to personal as well as professional use. But no community seems to have embraced the romantic possibilities of the BlackBerry as wholeheartedly as Washington's young politicos. In the high-tempo, socially incestuous world of Washington politics, where more than 60 percent of Congressional staff members are single, the BlackBerry a wireless e-mail device introduced five years ago by Research in Motion, a Canadian company has become indispensable to social life. Thanks to the lobbying firms, political campaigns and government agencies that issue BlackBerries, a critical mass of wireless-enabled romantics can now boldly clip them to their belts or discreetly tuck them away in purses in preparation for the evening's adventures. The chipmunklike thumb action associated with "Berrying" is now as readily observed in smoky bars on late nights as it is in Congressional hearings.
"Once the Hill staffers got the Berries, the social dating scene was revolutionized," said Jano Cabrera, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. "Suddenly they have gone from earnest policy wonks and flacks who leave at the end of the day to mini-keyboard Lotharios."
The BlackBerry gained a foothold in Washington two and a half years ago, after the Sept. 11 attacks left many in the city incommunicado when cellphone services were overwhelmed. BlackBerries worked fine that day (the proprietary network that carries their signals, for a monthly fee, has far less traffic than the networks used by cellphones), and shortly afterward the House allocated more than $500,000 to outfit its members with them.
Since then, lawmakers have started using their office budgets to provide BlackBerries to even junior staff members. With them, business can be conducted at any hour of the day or night; it is not uncommon, for example, for the staff of Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, to receive to-do lists sent from his BlackBerry after midnight. In 2001, perhaps a few dozen BlackBerries were in use on the Hill; there are now more than 5,000.
The devices have given Washington professionals a way to Ping-Pong witty messages back and forth with potential love interests around the clock. The BlackBerry's mobility makes exchanging personal e-mail at all hours a lot more convenient than using a computer, and it offers protection from the awkwardness that voice communication can present.
Never mind liquid courage: this is digital courage.
"You no longer have the classic dilemma in Washington, which is such a conservative town: `Is it too late for me to call?' " Mr. Cabrera said. "Instead, you can simply and safely send a Berry. If they are awake they will respond, and if they are not, they won't."
Mr. Donnelly, the wireless executive, has also found his BlackBerry useful when the telephone fails him. He once saw a romantic interest walk into a bar and immediately called her on her cellphone. "I saw her look at the phone and put me right to voice mail," he said, still indignant. But then he sent her a BlackBerry message, which made her laugh and prompted her to walk over and find him.
Congressional aides, whose average age is under 35, now flirt via BlackBerry in staff meetings, often right under the boss's nose. For those who do not want to raise the eyebrows of friends, the device offers a discreet way to coordinate leaving a bar with someone. And many users testify to the effectiveness of the late-night Berry overture a short, apparently innocuous inquiry ("What are you up to?" or "Where are you?"
sent at an hour when calling might seem too forward.
Of course, there can be less happy consequences to having so much personal communication so readily accessible. Last year, for example, a Republican who works in the House of Representatives was on the verge of proposing to his girlfriend, who worked in the Senate. But then he looked through her BlackBerry and found romantic e-mail messages from another man. (For convenience, many users leave their BlackBerries unprotected by passwords.) They broke up after he confronted her and found out she had been cheating on him for months, according to a close friend of the man.
One woman dating a man who works on Capitol Hill said he has taken his BlackBerry into the bathroom with him when showering, to keep her from snooping. "I admit I would have snooped, because he's a total player in Washington, and I would have wanted to see who else he was dating," said the woman, a 31-year-old television producer who asked to remain anonymous.
Many users caution against taking the BlackBerry out for a night on the town. Drunken Berrying like drunken dialing can be dangerous, or at least regrettable.
"The BlackBerry is so mobile, you can just pull it out and start saying idiotic things right away," said Danielle Baussan, a 28-year-old lawyer in Washington. "In contrast, in the time it takes for you to get home to your computer you might have sobered up."
"It's actually worse than drunk-dialing," she said, "because at least they know you are drunk. But if you drunk-Berry, they're not so sure."
Another 31-year-old producer, who works for CNN, regrets a BlackBerry message he sent when drunk to a woman he was interested in, after seeing her one night at Kingpin, a Washington bar. He started the e-mail in the cab and finished it in bed before he went to sleep.
"I sent this totally passive-aggressive drunken e-mail," he lamented. "She woke up in the morning and read it and thought I was a total freak."
Then there is the danger of sending the right message to the wrong person. Jeff Kimbell, a 33-year-old lobbyist, once accidentally sent a BlackBerry message asking an ex-girlfriend who was already engaged to someone else for a date. "They had similar names," he said, explaining how he had scrolled to the wrong name on the screen with his thumb. "I had to spend time cleaning that mess up."
In Washington and elsewhere, the devices are referred to as "CrackBerries" because of their addictive quality. Philippe Reines, a 34-year-old Democrat who works on Capitol Hill (and who coined the term "blirting," for BlackBerry flirting), said he went through severe withdrawal after finding that Martha's Vineyard lacked BlackBerry reception. Mr. Reines wandered around the Vineyard for days looking for spots of coverage before begging an airline employee to take his BlackBerry on a round trip to the mainland, where it could send and receive messages. He got 129 new messages, many of them social.
Those who lose BlackBerry privileges can also experience withdrawal. "It's really hard to live without one," said Marcie Ridgway, 28, who had to turn in her BlackBerry when she left a job as a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. "I'm learning to get weaned off." Ms. Ridgway and Mr. Donnelly used to flirt regularly via BlackBerry. Now they cannot.
"It has been very difficult," Mr. Donnelly said. "We've had to do it the old-school way in person."
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