Colin Sheridan: My fake phone call advice for Leonardo DiCaprio

Many people on social media were unhappy with Dicaprio's answering a phone call and ignoring a group of resort staffers waiting for him in the lobby, preparing to do a native song and dance in his honour, but I sympathise, writes Colin Sheridan

I never foresaw Leonardo DiCaprio being a trigger for anything positive in my life, but we live in strange times. File photo: Jordan Strauss/AP Content Services for Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

I am going to go out on a limb and say that no person who has ever lived has pretend-spoken on a mobile telephone more than me. 

I’ve done it in every conceivable social situation. Airports. The school gate (staple). In a restaurant. Just this morning, walking through an inoffensive college campus. I’ve spoken out loud (to nobody) with great authority on subjects that are of no consequence to my life. 

I’ve asked for contracts to be reviewed and sent over. People to be fired on my behalf. Stock to be dumped before Tokyo opens for trading. I’ve remonstrated with an empty telephone that something that never happened is simply not acceptable and therefore cannot — simply cannot, I tell you — be tolerated. 

What if it rings while I’m pretending to talk, you ask? I’ll answer by posing a question of my own: do you think I’ve gotten this far by making rookie mistakes like leaving my phone on loud? I'm no amateur. My phone hasn't made a sound since about 2016. Silent mode, mostly. The odd vibrate. But never will you hear an Angels Feather drop from my device. Nor Bach's Siciliano. 

Whatever acute social anxiety triggers this defence mechanism is, as yet, undiagnosed but some of the performances I’ve given while walking have been Oscar-worthy. I’ve never taken an acting class but I’m so proficient at my craft I make Robert de Niro in Heat look like Andie McDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral. 

So, if you see me and want to shoot the breeze about the new Gladiator flick? Sorry, I’ve got to take this. It’s Paul from accounts and if I don’t answer nobody’s getting paid this month. Don’t take it personally.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Why out myself now? Well, I never foresaw Leonardo DiCaprio being a trigger for anything positive in my life, but we live in strange times.

Last week, Leo was trying to leave some luxury hotel in Fiji when it seems he spotted a group of resort staffers waiting for him in the lobby, preparing to do a native song and dance in his honour. The footage tells the story of a movie star whose phone rings at an opportune moment, and, indifferent to his hosts' well-meaning farewells, he answers, leaving the lobby without acknowledging them. 

Many people on social media were unhappy with Dicaprio's ambivalence, labelling it as disrespectful and aloof. How would they feel, I wonder, if they knew that Leo wasn't even on his phone, but pretending to be? 

I may not have ever had a staff of a five-star resort give me a guard of honour as I checked out (not this month, anyway), but I know the look, the gait, the posture of a man taking a fake phone call when I see one. 

This was classic people-dodging, and while I neither endorse nor defend Mr DiCaprio's actions, I definitely understand. I’m even here for him if he wants to talk (on a yacht, preferably).

By calling myself out, I am committing to decommissioning my weapon of mass avoidance. Life is so short and too fickle for me to continue to pretend-fire my literary agent while I wait in line for my coconut latte. 

I realise that I have to come to terms with the fact that it's unlikely anybody wants to talk to me anyway, save for an exchange of pleasantries or casually mistaking me for my older brother (seven years older, annoyingly). 

Everybody has somewhere else to be, and my steadfast refusal to make eye contact with them — let alone take the silent phone from my ear — is an absolute reflection of my own pseudo self-importance. By outing myself as an arsehole, I hope to start afresh.

In my defence, you have to understand I have lived a life defined by reaching for handshakes that were never meant for me. By driving down my price in negotiations. By going for three kisses when a simple fist bump would have sufficed. I have congratulated widows at funerals instead of sympathising. 

I once ended a conversation with a very important person, with a government minister, by saying “thanks dad” only because the person knew my father, and I was nervous and misspoke. 

He was not my father. His wife, who was in earshot, looked as crestfallen as I was quietly humiliated.

It is because of this you will see me stride defiantly down the street instructing my lawyer over the phone to diversify my portfolio, cum festinatione. Yes, of course, there’s no lawyer. No portfolio, either. There is, however, a mind sprinting on a treadmill of overthink. And It’s exhausting.

So I am exhausted. Just know I am trying. I am aware of the absurdity of my condition and am determined to relinquish all props. To make eye contact. To walk towards the casual interaction, not away from it. To become the tormentor I have long avoided, not the tormented I’ve always been.

So, if you see me, say hi.

Man is born broken, Eugene O'Neill said, and he lives by mending. I'm mending. Just bear with me while I take this call from Roberto in the Milan office.

I ain't cured yet.