A Tough Call: Invisible Phone Or Invisible Friend

Jim Janikowski of Motorola wears Oakley sunglasses with Bluetooth attached. (By Jim Sulley -- Associated Press)

"You see people arguing, and it looks like he's schizophrenic!" begins bike messenger Jeff Combs, who finds himself moderately reassured when he can say, "Ohhhh. He's got one of those things on."

But some of the homeless denizens of Dupont, guys like forty-something Hank Myers, are less understanding and have dubbed anyone talking to the air, without cell or headset immediately apparent, as "not normal."

"I equate it with being homeless," Myers says, no matter that wireless headsets can cost upwards of $200 and some of those talking most outrageously can be wearing bespoke suits, silk ties and ostentatious cuff links.

This is not to say, though, that it's always easy to tell which is which in the game of Crazy? Or cellphone?

Across the park from Myers struts a debonair man, his gray tee tucked into belted jeans. He's swinging his sunglasses all jaunty and confident.

"All right," he's saying. "That's right." Like he's finishing up a business call and is about to spend the afternoon playing hooky. "Uh huh."

We walk toward him, armed with our anthropologist questions, then notice: There is no headset . He keeps talking, and somehow, it feels rude to interrupt. We back away.

The enthusiastic adopters know how they look. "You're an idiot" and "What's wrong with him?" were Ed Schneider's Bluetoothy judgments before he became one himself. The 44-year-old businessman is wearing his earpiece outside Gate A at Union Station and waiting for a train back home to Richmond. He's now addicted: "It's phenomenal," he says -- repeatedly. "I'm totally sold on it."

His wife, though? Can't stand it. She calls Schneider's oversized earring a "Star Wars-type thing," and she calls him "Spock."

Such Vulcanizing of the Bluetooth people is a common cut-down, and it's not always received politely. We thought the early days of cellphones were bad, with the still unsolved moral equation between the industrious converts -- I cannot live without it! -- and the pious holdouts -- So rude! So tacky! Who airs their personal business on public sidewalks?

"I'm never gonna do that! That's crazy ," 36-year-old Darius Carr promised himself, vowing to remain Bluetooth-free, until, not quite a month ago, he caved. He now wears his earpiece constantly, even at lunchtime over a mustardy hotdog eaten on a bench at Connecticut and Rhode Island avenues NW.

Confesses fanatic Frederic Roane, 48: "I've had several girlfriends tell me they don't like it."