I was chatting with my introverted friend just now. She had a minor operation and then caught COVID, and called me because she realized she hadn’t talked with anyone for a few weeks. I told her that some days the only person I talk to is the bus driver.

That was a fib, I realize now.

I talk on the phone, text, write e-mails, and chat with neighbors and with complete strangers every day.

Even on the days when I’m not hanging out in person with friends and acquaintances, I chat with a few people on the phone almost every day. I also occasionally talk to other passengers in the senior citizen seats. Sometimes I just listen in as they talk to each other, or on the phone.

People my age get a lot of spam calls, and a lot of the people on the bus don’t ignore the calls the way I do. A lady the other day was telling us that she gets spam calls and always tells them to stop calling her; we all told her to ignore the calls, let them go to voice mail, and block them, but she was sunnily content with her current strategy.

Another lady took it even further yesterday. I was sitting next to her when she answered her phone and said, “Hello? Hello? You can’t hear me because you’re not a real person,” and hung up. Of course her phone rang again immediately afterwards because it turned out it was her daughter instead. Which is why you pick up the phone when you’re old, because you never know.

I mostly don’t pick up at all, unless I recognize the person calling. Very few people leave voice mail, whether they are friends or bots. And now I have the new iOs which asks unknown people to identify themselves before putting the call through.

I mostly answer calls from a handful of close people. I don’t always pick up for them, either. More often than not, friends text me first, to ask if they can call me. My kid does that, too.

When I do pick up, my Bluetooth hearing aids insist on taking the call, and though the quality of the microscopic microphone is decent, sometimes I have to apologize, stop, and switch the sound to my phone. This is difficult when I have answered while, say, riding on a crowded bus and hanging on to the straps.

People like to complain that the kids don’t talk on the phone, but they do, especially on the bus; they are often FaceTiming loudly, without earbuds. So are the old people. Sometimes people shout. Sometimes they rage at their phones, and swear. Once at night, a whole busload started to laugh after a guy got off after a long call with his girlfriend where he was absolutely screaming at his phone.

I do a lot of texting, too, mostly with my adult kid and with a handful of close friends, though another friend annoys me because she likes to send group texts (she is also still on Facebook). I usually mute group texts. If I do respond, I write a completely new text just to the person I want to talk to.

Other than that? I do have friends and family who I talk to on email.

I send out handwritten Christmas cards, and will keep doing that as long as the post office keeps operating.

And in my neighborhood, I’m that newsy old lady who talks to everyone, especially since my husband died. He used to be my ambassador to the neighborhood because I made him smoke outside.

And then there are the interactions that are harder to define. For instance, yesterday, I got on a full bus with heavy shopping bags, and because I don’t want to fall down trying to get to the back of the bus, I pointed at a front seat that a woman was saving with her own shopping. She refused to move her things, and all the other senior citizens started yelling, “Move! Move!” at her. Finally, grumbling in a foreign language, she moved her groceries, and I sat down. She continued to grumble. When it was time for her to get off the bus, she got up and nearly fell over. I said, “Ooh!” and we smiled at one another.

It wasn’t a conversation, but it was certainly an interaction.

All things considered, I am pretty connected. It just looks as if I’m all alone.