Just tell them the truth. "Yes, but not in relation to my studies."
Phone tag can be absolutely hilarious! Occasionaly, it get annoying. That's when I hang up. I left the group a while back because the group leader was Mr. Internet Drama Extraordinare. N, seriously, that was his name. But now ToothpickMoe is in charge and the group rocks again.
What you say does make sense to me; and I completey agree that it's comedy--satire, I would say, more precisely.
But still, my problem is that it leaves us with nothing. Everything is critiqued into oblivion, and it strikes me as being nihilistic: i.e., in the end, choosing nothing. Everything seems to be set equal. Consumerism/materialism is critiqued and so is the revolution. But is there not a third way?
I think it's because when you are online you can control to a large degree how much you interact with any one person. Therefore, if you're not in the mood to be cheery, you just don't reply, and the "lag" is not interpreted as an insult.
It's like getting to wait to do all your socializing during that part of your day or week where you actually feel like doing it, as opposed to meat-space when you are forced to do your socializing when it's in front of you.
