My T often leaves his Iphone sitting next to him on the couch, sometimes face down, sometimes not. He usually has it on vibrate, which is very noisy to me. When it vibrates, he will often look to see who it is. I don't like that. Why can't he check his calls between clients instead of while clients are there? I turn my phone off before we start our session so it won't interrupt us. A few times I forgot to turn it off and it rang. I felt like that was very impolite of me and I always apologized and reached to turn it off immediately, and did not check who the call was from. Now that my T is in his "must be in contact with friends and family 24/7 with my nifty Iphone" phase, if my phone accidentally rings and I reach to turn it off, T pounces on his phone and uses my mistake as an excuse to now check his phone calls and email on his phone. Honestly! But I guess that will teach me, right?

The thing that really bugged me was his use of his laptop while we are in session. It's not so bad now that he has Internet access on his Iphone, but he used to leave his laptop open next to him on the couch. Sometimes he would glance down at it. I thought he was checking for new emails, but I don't know, because I can't see the screen. I have spoken to him about his laptop several times and asked him to not have it next to him. The first time I raised this, he gave the excuse that he needed his laptop to be charging so he can use it for scheduling clients, and the charger was plugged into the outlet near where we sit. I asked him why he can't move the charger to his desk and charge the laptop there? He didn't like this idea and told me that other clients are not bothered by his having his laptop next to him. (What am I to make of that comment? That I'm unreasonable compared to other clients?) He said it was helpful to have the laptop nearby so he could look up things in session related to the conversation with clients, if need be. I told him it was fine if he didn't look things up on his laptop for me during our sessions. I then suggested that I would be OK with the laptop remaining next to him if he just kept it closed. He said there really was no need for that since he isn't reading anything anyway since the screen is blank. I said yes, but I don't know what you're looking at when you glance at the screen. I don't know that it's blank. He said, well it is. I said well if it's blank, what's the difference if you have the laptop closed? So he agreed to close it. He forgot at first and I had to remind him at several sessions, but he got better at it.

There is this muffled bell that sounds every so often in his office. I always imagined it was some kind of ringer that sounded in his office when someone opened the door to his waiting room, so that he could know when the next client had arrived. This turned out to be wrong because one day, when the bell had wrung at least half a dozen times, I asked him what that noise was. He said it was the sound his computer makes when he gets a new email. Why would he need to know that a new email has arrived at the exact instant it enters his box? Truly, I do not understand this need! It's obnoxious. I told him I was feeling really distracted by the bell and asked if he could mute the sound on his laptop. Honestly! I feel like he is a little boy sometimes, always pressing the edges of what the parent insists is appropriate behavior. I don't like having to feel I am the "parent" in our relationship.

I can't believe he is so stupid about this stuff because he's really a very good T. Frankly, I think he is Internet and Iphone addicted, and this has worsened since I began seeing him. I have been quite patient with him and only mentioned a fraction of this stuff as it has occurred. I'm just tired of all his tech stuff intruding into our sessions.