What Use Is An F-call?

What use is an F-call? Recently I was talking to a non-amateur about Amateur Radio. You know the kind of conversation, sitting around a coffee-table, talking about life, hobbies, etc. I mentionned that I was getting out and about meeting people in Amateur Radio, participating in events, learning and generally having a great time. The person I was talking to immediately responded with: "That's all too technical for me, I could never do that." And thus began a conversation that went for an hour or so on how radio works, what wave-length and frequency were, how sound is transmitted, how an antenna works, how you get a license, how much it costs and many of the mechanics related to our hobby. At no point did we talk about Ohms, or impedence or electronics as such, it was more along the lines of throwing a pebble into a lake, but at the end of the discussion there was a great deal of demystification that had taken place. It has taken a little while for me to realise, but the demystification is what ho