Anyone else have this weird phone habit?

[Kiminy]

I really don’t like the phone at all.

I can use a phone to make doctor’s appointments without too many problems, or to call my husband or daughter, but that’s about the limit I’m comfortable with.

I hate to call other people. It never occurred to me to worry that I might disturb them–it’s more that I just hate to talk to people on the phone. Period.

I hate even more when people call me. I am one of those people who will easily (and gladly, even) ignore a ringing phone for any reason I choose to do so. Sometimes, it’s because I’m doing something else, and answering the phone would be an interruption. Most of the time, it’s just that I don’t feel like dealing with someone on the phone, especially when I don’t have time to prepare myself for the conversation ahead of time.

Call waiting has been a huge boon to me. It allows me to at least see who I am ignoring, and decide if I would rather deal with the call immediately, or wait until later.

Interestingly, I did work as a telephone receptionist for several months, when I filled in for a receptionist who quit. I did fine with it, but it was all impersonal calls, and most of them fell into a limited number of situations, making it easy for me to handle them.

In the long run, though, I think it comes from the fact that I have a lunatic mother, who frequently drank herself practically into a coma, then call me to threaten that she was going to kill herself. Or she would just call me repeatedly when she was drunk, then hang up as soon as I picked up the phone.

I do like having e-mail and web sites–I even order pizza online, rather than calling it in, and it works just as fast as if I called directly. Mr. Kiminy is good about making phone calls that I can’t make, for whatever reason.

[Beware_of_Doug]

“The telephone is a blunt instrument.” -BoD

As someone with various cognitive/attention problems, I have encountered so many misunderstandings, misapprehensions, miscues, awkward moments and just plain bad juju when struggling to communicate with a disembodied lo-fi voice at the other end of a wire that it just doesn’t make any sense to me that it must be the default method of communication for humankind.

I only use the g/d thing when absolutely necessary. I mean when it doesn’t make sense to use email, snailmail, or show up in person. I am usually either contemptuous or suspicious of business associates who prefer not to use email (I often assume it’s because they want no paper trail of our transaction, which is not a comforting thought).

[Telperien]

Thank you all for replying. It’s been very interesting for me to learn your thoughts on this.

@enipla

I will go in the other room if the Wife is watching TV or something. Or in the presence of any group of people. It’s only common courtesy to NOT talk on your phone in front of other people. You are, in effect, ignoring everyone else with a big red flag clamped to your ear. It’s rude and impolite. It speaks volumes about how important you think you are compared to everyone else.

I do this as well. I do not make calls in front of other people unless it’s absolutely necessary, and when I receive calls, I leave the room if I can, or tell the caller I will call them back when I am not with other people. People who answer their phones and immediately start yakking in a loud voice, disturbing everyone else in the room, give me a desire to insert their phones somewhere unpleasant.

[E.Thorp]

I love email and dislike the phone. My phone skills have deteriorated since I moved three time zones away from my oldest and dearest friends: now that I have the excuse of it’s-too-early/late-to-call, I indulge my natural phone reticence all the more often. Some of them are starting to notice, I’m pretty sure, but I don’t think I’ve lost any friends over it. Yet.

[Anastasaeon]

I rarely call anyone - I think the only person I call with ease these days is my mother.

It’s always been like this, though. I had a best friend in high school who I would call sometimes, but not often. She would usually do all the calling. And I would talk on the phone for hours on end… I just rarely called out.

Kind of like in the highschool cafeteria - I would just sit by myself, because I liked being alone. But then I’d suddenly be surrounded by people who called themselves my “friends” (whether they were or not). They were like a foreshadowing of telemarketers.

[gigi]

@LoganDear

I also put off calling people because I dont want to bother them. It’s not so much of a “fear” though, just something I find myself doing… pretty much every day. Maybe it’s a self-esteem thing. Sometimes I think these people don’t want to hear from me (which is weird, and probably not true). But I also hate being on the phone (especially for a long period of time), so I’ll put off calling those friends that tend to talk a lot.

Get out of my head!!

That’s me to a tee. I always screen my calls because I need to be prepared for what to say, but I try to pick up in time because calling back is a mountain to climb. I will call friends only if they live alone; if they have a roommate or partner living with them I don’t call because I could be disturbing someone I don’t know, or interrupting “activities”.

But basically nothing much happens to report; only my parents are at all interested in the minutiae of my day.

[devilsknew]

I have a medium case of phone-o-phobia. I really do like to hear from friends and relatives, but my phone skills are hit or miss. Sometimes I can carry a conversation and feel really good about it, other times I’m just at a loss for words or really just at a loss for viable thoughts… I often start grasping at straws when this happens and the results are just embarrassing and uncomfortable. Afterwards,I worry about the call obsessively for hours sometimes days. I have a sort of anticipatory anxiety, if I start to think about it I get really freaked about making calls or saying the wrong thing and will avoid calling out of a weird fear. I also feel a bit of the imposition that many talk about. Also, I’m a pretty economical and straight forward communicator and I live a pretty boring life, I just can’t find conversational topics sometimes and I feel guilty because I’m not interesting enough and see no point in calling until I’ve accumulated some anecdotes…pretty freaky, but I hate to force conversation or feel like I am failing because I can’t lead a conversation.