Sorry about the rant, I'm just checking in to see if I'm crazy or not.
I mean.. In this aspect, I know I'm crazy in a sort of general way, but, when I was a kid we just had land lines. You know, no mobile phones, just phones in homes. That meant that when you called someone, you were a guest of sorts in that person's home and that came with some etiquette; you didn't call too early, too late or during dinner.

One of the rules of that etiquette was that if person A gave you their number (and this a sort of invitation for you to call to their home) that you didn't give it to person B without making sure it was okay with person A first. Kind of like not bringing unannounced friends if you dropped by there place.

I've noticed people are getting way easier about just handing out people's cell phone numbers to just anyone, without letting the owner of that number know first, much less getting their permission to pass it on. Which is confusing to me, because cell phones have enabled us to invade pretty much every aspect of someone's life. If you call someone they could be pretty much anywhere, doing pretty much anything.

Forget about calling someone during dinner, they could be on the crapper or sleeping. And people are quick to say "Well they should leave it elsewhere/turn it off." but what if they have a sick relative for whom they could get a call at any time? And really, back when we just had land lines we wouldn't leave the horn off, we'd expect people to not be rude and call during dinner.

And it's one thing if a friend calls you at an inopportune moment, but a stranger?

An expo tried to include my number on an info sheet of my art, alongside the size/title/material and such and I was like "Whut O_o"

Why on earth would an art expo visitor need to call me on my cellphone?! What could possibly warrant that kind of availability to just anyone? What kind of weird calls could I have gotten? When I'm at an opening which includes my work people already get to ask me all sorts of questions, most of which are "how did you make this" followed by confused disappointment that me explaining the media and process doesn't automagically enable them to do what I do, or perhaps a realization that I did indeed make the piece and it didn't fall from the heavens.

I mean, my e-mail address is already on the info card, if people have questions or want to buy the work. Why include my number as well?! It's an art expo, not a dating service!

I'm so confused as to why they thought this was a good idea, to make my phone number publicly available.
Especially since they also provide gallery services; a gallery usually guards their artists' contact information jealously. If anything because buying directly from the artist is about 30 to 60% cheaper when the artist doesn't have to pay the gallery's commission.

But more importantly, why would it be okay to give whoever the means to invade my personal life via my phone like that? I mean, I don't expect them to know I have anxiety issues when I get calls from unknown numbers (long story, don't care if you think it's silly, anxiety is not a logical thing or subject to peer pressure) but I would have told them had they asked me if they could publish my phone number like that. I just found out by coincidence what their intentions were and was able to stop them.

Thank goodness for that.