Face-down is still on the table

Quick answer: Put the phone in a pocket, a bag or the truck before you sit down. Face-down on the table doesn't count. If you're expecting something urgent, say so once, out loud, and leave the phone face up on purpose. Everything else is practice.

The phone is a vote

Picture two men at a diner at 7 a.m. Both phones are flipped over next to the ketchup, like pistols at a duel. Nobody's looking at a screen. Nobody has to. Both men know that if one of them buzzes, the conversation is over.

A phone on the table says, "You have my attention until something better shows up." Maybe nothing will. But you've reserved the right to leave, and the other guy can feel that even if he couldn't tell you why.

So he edits. He keeps the story short. He skips the hard part, the part about the job, the marriage, the kid who won't talk to him. The things worth saying take a man who believes you're staying.

Decide at the door

Willpower at the table loses. It usually loses around minute eleven, during the first pause. So make the decision before you walk in.

• Long meal with friends: leave it in the glovebox.
• Quick coffee: inside jacket pocket, ringer off.
• Dinner with your wife: it stays on the charger in the kitchen, or in your bag, zipped.

Silent beats vibrate. Vibrate buzzes against your leg and you'll feel it like a tap on the shoulder.

And expect it to pull at you. For the first ten minutes you'll reach for it, mostly to check the time. Wear a watch. A forty-dollar watch solves more of this than any app, because you can check the hour without opening a door to the entire internet.

The one sentence that buys you freedom

Sometimes you really are on the hook. A kid with a fever at home with the sitter. A parent in the hospital. A job where somebody's actually counting on you.

Say it in one sentence at the start. "My daughter's running a fever, so if my wife calls, I'm taking it. Otherwise you've got me." Then put the phone face up, on purpose.

That's a different thing from hovering. It's disclosed. The other guy knows what the buzz means and what it doesn't, and he can relax.

Be honest with yourself about what qualifies, though. A client who might text back isn't an emergency. Neither is a game score. If you wouldn't leave the table for it, it doesn't earn a place on the table.

Let the argument stay unsettled

Two friends disagree about what year a truck came out, or who won a certain World Series. The search is already in your hand. It takes eight seconds, and it kills the conversation.

You were having fun. Now one of you was right, the other's looking at a screen, and the talk's moved on to a spec sheet.

Let it hang. Say "I'll look it up later," and half the time you won't, and nothing will be lost. Some of the best talk you'll ever have starts with two men arguing about something neither can verify.

Sit through the silence

Phones are the enemy of the pause, and the pause is where the real thing comes out.

A man who's gone quiet for six seconds is usually deciding whether to tell you what's actually going on. If you glance at your screen in that gap, you've answered for him. The answer is no.

Count to five. If he still hasn't picked it back up, ask the second question, the one most people skip. Not "How's work?" but "What happened after that?" The first question gets an answer. The second gets a story.

When the other person is the one scrolling

You don't have to be a pushover about this. You also don't have to lecture. Lecturing a man about his phone has never once made him put it down.

Say it once, lightly. "Go ahead and deal with that, I'll wait." Then wait, and mean it. Or, "I'd like to hear about this when you've got a minute." Some people will put it away. Some won't.

If a friend does it every single time, that's information. Make the coffees shorter, and save the real conversations for the friends who show up. You're allowed to protect your time.

With your wife or kids it's different. Set the rule at your own table and go first. Children copy what's in your hand far more than what comes out of your mouth, which is a big part of how values actually pass down. A phone-free dinner that Dad sneaks out of in the middle isn't a rule. It's a lesson in how rules work.

Where this goes sideways

A few honest warnings.

The phone stack game. Everybody piles their phones in the middle and the first one to grab his pays the check. It's fine at a birthday dinner. As a lifestyle it's a gimmick, and you can't run your friendships on a dare. Build the habit instead.

The announcement. Don't make a speech about putting your phone away. "I'm doing a digital detox" is a way of making the evening about you. Just put it away and keep talking.

Forgetting the in-between. Most phone-checking doesn't happen mid-sentence. It happens while the other guy's in the restroom, or waiting on the food. If you pull it out then, you'll be mentally somewhere else when he gets back. Look around instead. Watch the room. You'd be amazed what's there.

Start with one meal

Don't try to rebuild your whole life. Pick one. Breakfast with your wife, or the first twenty minutes of any visit with a friend, or the drive home with the kids when you pick them up.

If you want the larger picture, take back the two hours your phone is quietly taking is a good next read. And the idea that the phone isn't the problem, the default is fits here exactly. Change the default, and the table takes care of itself.

Think of it the way you'd think of showing up at somebody's house. You don't arrive empty-handed. You bring something. The best thing you can bring to a conversation is the part of you that isn't half somewhere else.

The first time you do it right, you'll notice how much of the other guy was there all along that you'd been missing.