I hate making phone calls. I’m OK answering them at work, but I don’t like calling people at all. In the last 7 days, I have sent/received 612 texts and dozens of emails, and made 2 phone calls – one of which was personal, the other to a doctor’s office to schedule a followup.
I order from Pizza Hut cause you can do it online, and in fact won’t order delivery from anywhere I can’t do online. So, for basically anything but Pizza Hut, I go get it myself. I hate getting bills that require either a check or a phone call to pay with a credit card, and I put paying them way way off until I have to. I feel they should make it payable online, so I just ignore them for a bit.
I have always hated phone calls, and the current preference for texting / email / online commerce both suits me perfectly and enables my aversion to phone calls.
I’m 33, BTW. The only two people whom I actually like talking to on the phone are my mother and my brother, but both of them (like me) tend to prefer text or email.
I’m the same age as the OP and hate making phone calls. Business calls are fine because there’s a purpose. For personal calls, it’s partially a fear that the other person will wonder why the hell I’m calling them, plus I have a hard time figuring out how to end the conversation. Working in a call center has helped for personal calls that involve setting up an appointment or calling the cable company, but I had a setback earlier this year when a staff member at my doctor’s office was rude to me on several occasions when I called. It’s one of the reasons I went to urgent care instead of making an appointment with my doctor a couple of weeks ago. The anxiety extends to texting as well. I’ll only text my mom or my husband.
And as far as treatment, having to make a call to set up an appointment would trigger the anxiety for me.
I’m 34. I love email at work, I do my best to not talk to people on the phone. When I do get the random phone call, I let it go to voice mail so I can figure out what I should say when I call back.
This works because I am tossing boxes and its understood that I can’t just climb down the ladder, run to the other side of the warehouse and answer the phone.
I will text my sweetie and ask if its a good time to call. If he calls me right after my text, I let it go to voicemail, and then call him back. This has caused a few discussions, but he now understands that I need to gather up my courage so I can talk on the phone.
I’m 38 and dislike talking on the phone. I’d much rather speak face to face or email/text. I do agree that a lot of the anxiety is around disturbing the person at an inconvenient time, but then I remind myself that everyone has voicemail these days, so if it isn’t convenient, they won’t pick up.
Always procrastinate about making personal calls, especially answering people’s calls. Once we’re talking I’m ok, but initiating the call gives me anxiety. Non-personal calls aren’t so bad.
But making a phone call isn’t as bad as answering the doorbell.
I also heavily prefer texting or email over phone calls. I think it’s mostly that I like being able to get my thoughts aligned perfectly in written language, as opposed to potentially stumbling or rambling in verbal communication.
But the thing is, because of other technologies today, it really doesn’t adversely affect my personal or professional life or relationships with others or physical health, which is the rubric I generally have for “is this a mental health issue which requires intervention?”
I’m anxious, yes, but not so anxious that I don’t pick up the phone and call when I have to. I’m not going to lose my job over it (I *would *lose my job if I couldn’t call despite my anxiety - as a home health nurse, I have to phone doctors and patients and physical therapists, etc. constantly.)
Some parts of life are hard and anxiety producing. Some people are scared of spiders. Some people are afraid of ladders. Doesn’t mean that it always needs treatment.
I don’t know how much of it’s pathology (social anxiety, shyness, etc.) and how much it’s lack of pathology (i.e. we’re not the kind of person who barges through life never thinking about how our actions may affect or inconvenience or impose on other people). In my case I’m pretty sure it’s some combination of both. When calling someone on the phone (as opposed to speaking to them in person), you really don’t know what they’re in the middle of doing when you call, and it’s not an irrational fear that you may be interrupting something or calling at a bad time.
I’m 58 and I don’t like making calls only because I hate getting voice mail or “Press 1 for…” or being put on hold forever. When I place a call, I want to speak with a specific person or business for a specific reason, and that rarely happens.
I don’t have a texting plan for my phone, and I’ve got a very basic phone that can only text with multiple beeping of the number keys to find the right letters. I have no use for texting. Speak to me like a human being, please. Thank you.
I’m mildly dyslectic so making phone calls was always a challenge. I have to cover a few digits of the number and work at them a few at a time.
A couple of years ago: Total stress at my mother’s where she had an eight digit number you needed to dial before dialing the number you needed - some sort of saving. After calling random strangers and running up her phone bill all morning I ended up having her dial my numbers for me.
I’d forgotten about that stress since my phone life really began when I got a cell phone and never had to dial a number. Bliss.
Pretty much my first thought is how to get off the phone as quickly as possible. I’m a bit of a here and now person. Meet me there and then; now get off the blower.
I’m in a job now where I might make 30 or 40 short calls per day. Thank goodness I can store 60 numbers in the work phone or I’d be in tears.
I hate talking on the phone - I wouldn’t say I’m nervous about it though. I just keep my phone on silent and screen my calls through callerid. If I need something from someone I’ll call them, if not I won’t. Short and sweet and infrequent.
Ugh. I kept putting off making those phone calls yesterday. When it was to late to call, I felt a huge relief and thought: “I’ll just deal with it tomorrow”. And now it is tomorrow… I wish I had the option of texting or emailing these people, but I don’t.
I’d say so. It’s hard to make a comparison though because texting wasn’t that big when I was 29.
Although one thing I do hate is conference calls. You have as many as a dozen different people all dialed in from various locations with phones of varying quality and volume. You can’t see whose paying attention or figure out whose speaking.
Count me in as someone amazed by these responses. Do most of you have the same problems when interacting with people in real life, or is it something specific to the telephone?
I’m 24. Texting is fine for short and simple communications, and email is good for longer stuff. But for holding an actual conversation? I much prefer talking on the phone, or talking in person if possible. I’m impatient, and texting / email take too long.