I should preface this by saying my dad’s a pediatrician so he likes to leave the ringer on in case a patient needs to call, or in case he wants to answer the phone if a patient calls .
Having said that… Both my aunt and sister have adopted the habit of calling first on the line we call in on and then letting it ring and ring and ring. If no response, they will then call on our other number, the line we use to call out on. The ringing continues.
So I pick up. “Hello?” Annoyed voice or over-acted sleepy voice depending on the circumstances.
“I was worried about you!”
“I was taking a bath” most often.
“Oh, sorry” end of conversation, because see, they’re both just calling to chat. And I was having a lovely soak in the bathtub.
-Lil
Oh my, this sound’s just like my SO’s older brother too. Calls at all times to ask about how to install a game, or computer stuff, or lately it’s been complaining about his upcoming wedding’s cost. I do love him, but it’s just overwhelming…I wanna ask, don’t you have any friends where you live?
I also ignore my phone all the time. I thought i was the only one.
I, too, hate the phone. I hate calling out more than receiving a call, but I still hate being on the phone. To me, the phone is a tool to contact someone for a quick exchange - like to make a plan, to say “I’m ready, you can come pick me up now”, or to say “Get ready, because I’m going to go pick you up now”. An ideal conversation lasts less than a minute. There is only one person I want to “chat” to on the phone. If you are not this person, say what you need to say and get the heck off my phone!
Yeah, people call to confirm appointments or to let me know that the book I wanted at the library has come in. I answer those calls, because if I don’t, they will call back. What I hate the most though is how they call so ridiculously early! I have class at 11:30, which means I have to get up at about 10:50 to make it there. If you call me at 9 am, interrupting my pre-class sleep, I’ll be wishing for a button I can press that will electrocute you through the wires. Do they think that just because they’re in an office and they have to be awake early that I should be awake too? Because… NO. Sadly I live with my parents, and although the ringer is off in my room, I am a light sleeper and the phone ringing at the other end of the house is enough to wake me up.
My dad also has a friend who calls at least 5 times a day. My dad rolls his eyes before answering, every time. It’s amusing. But seriously, Siamese twins have talked less.
People act like I have three heads when I say I hate the phone. Let me tell you, when I move out there’s going to be some serious phone-ignoring!
Another phone non-answerer here. I recently got a new phone that has a choice of rings and ring volume. I set it on a gentle “bing bong” (sort of like a door bell) at the lowest volume. It’s very nice as it isn’t loud enough to wake me, but if I am up I can hear the quiet “bing bong” and if I feel like it, I’ll mosey over and check the caller ID. Mostly it’s not someone I want to talk to, so I just let it go to the answering service. It’s very freeing to not answer the phone.
Now my mobile I will almost always answer, as only a limited number of people know that number, and those are the ones I want to talk to. If I’m really busy doing something though I won’t answer that either.
We used to have our phone set on Loud Enough To Be Heard. And then, a few weeks ago, we kept getting these obnoxious calls at like 9:30am (My GF usually works nights and I’m a night person to begin with, so this is Prime Sleeping Hours) all the time. Just enough to wake me up. So I poked the phone and found it had a Just Barely Audible setting. Now, it’s much easier to ignore.
I don’t get the hostility people have when I say, “Oh, I don’t answer the phone.” They act like I said, "Yea, I’m gonna bake me up some cute, fluffy puppies for dinner."Just cause THEY like to be tethered to a little electronic device at all hours…
We’ve talked about getting rid of the landline and pocketing the $35 a month, but my GF needs a number in case work calls, the DSL is on it and I don’t want cable, and I don’t know if I wanna rely on a cellphone if I need to call 911.
The only time I answer the phone when it’s ringing is when I have called in a sick/personal day and want to prove to work that I am not off gallivanting around. But sometimes not even then. My parents are the only ones who care about the cost of leaving a message/announcing themselves in case I’m screening rather than hanging up before the machine gets it, so they often call me at work where I have to answer. Unfortunately.
To mangle a quote from some famous guy or another-- if I wanted to speak to them, I’d have called them!
For quite a few years my family actually didn’t have a phone and so I still think of no-phone as the default setting of life. Darned things intruding, making ugly noises, delivering rude people trying to sell me things I don’t want, blech. Yep, I’m a screener.
Yet another non-answerer here: I’ll answer my cell phone if I recognize the number, else I’ll let the voice mail pick up.
At home, I prefer to let the answering machine screen my calls for me. If it’s someone I want to talk to, I’ll either call them back (waiting a bit to get a drink if I know I’ll probably be on the phone for awhile with them), or pick up.
Most of the time I don’t need to deliberately screen the calls: by the time I can disengage from what I’m doing, and make it over to the phone, the machine has just picked up.
I too hate answering the phone. I think phones are an annoying intrusion into our daily lives, and try to make any phone conversations I must make as quick as possible. My gf keeps offering to get me a cell phone, she’ll even pay for it. She just doesn’t seem to understand me when I say I don’t want one. Why would I want a cell phone when I hate talking on the home phone?
I prefer to talk to people either face to face, or not at all. Or just email, and not have to talk at all.
I hate answering the phone too - always have, always will. Even when I was a teenager with her own phone line … I’d use it to call my friends, but I would let it ring non-stop if I didn’t feel like talking. Drove my parents NUTS!!!
Call display and voicemail are blessings to me … I pretty much only answer my phone if it’s my SO calling (if he’s at work or out of town). I think it drives him nuts, but so far he’s managed to deal with it.
My father is one of those people who will phone repeatedly (sometimes 4-5 times in one evening) without leaving a message. I REFUSE to call him back, or answer, because it makes me crazy. If someone leaves me a message, I almost always call them back the same day. But if they don’t leave a message … well, it’s the principle of the thing. The other day he called me, I answered to appease my SO, and we talked for maybe 2 minutes when dad said “Well I didn’t expect you to be home, and we’re actually on our way out … so …” GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
Telephones should be seen as a convenience, not a necessity. Just MHO. I firmly believe people should feel privileged when I choose to answer their calls!
I completely respect your right to do this, but the burning question I have for you is, Why do you give out your phone number at all? That would reduce unwanted phone calls by 100%!
I started a recent thread on this (sunk like a stone) and agree with all of you.
We have the ringer off and if the person speaking on the answering machine is someone I want to speak with, I will. If it is a bad time, I will call them back when I get around to it. If I never want to speak with them, I won’t.
Makes life so much easier.
What messages do you guys have? Mine simply says, “You have reached 555-5555.” No names or “leave a message” or whatever. Just the number. I figure that is fair, to ensure they have reached the right phone number.
I’m amazed at how many people share my dislike of the telephone. I really thought I was the only one.
I’ve noticed a couple of other things in this thread. People who don’t like to answer the phone are not averse to communicating. Everyone here seems eager to share their story.
Also, the posts in this thread are well written with few spelling errors. Maybe we just prefer a higher form of communicating and think of the phone as crass and inelegant.
I hold a pretty low opinion of people who have to be constantly yammering at someone. And I especially dislike being cut-off mid-sentence because the person’s cell phone is ringing. These must be the people at whom radio ads that begin with a phone ringing are aimed. It only makes me reach for the volume knob.
My message: “This is Ted at 555-5555. Leave your name and number and I’ll call you back.”
I answer when I want to talk to the caller. If I don’t recognize the number or name, it goes to voice mail. Another plus is that Colorado has a no-call list so the only telemarketers we get are calling from non-profit agencies - I don’t answer those.
My phone is in my home for my convenience - not anyone else’s. I’m surprised that there are so many other non-phone folks out there - especially when every other person you see in public seems to be on the phone.
Who said Pavlov’s work only applied to animals? We used to screen a lot of our calls because of telemarketers. Since the state and national no-call list was created, we’ve had very few calls. We aren’t the most social folks either, so we don’t get many calls (my 12 year old daughter gets more than we do) to begin with. I also have a cell phone, but I carry a pager, and give that number out to those who might need to contact me.
A friend of mine constantly ribbed me because I didn’t leave my cell phone on all the time. He’d say things like, “Why do you have the phone if it’s never on? It’s normal to have a cell phone on. You are not using it normally.”
In fact, he though for the longest time (before I told him) that my cell phone was on, except when he called. It was so outside of the realm of possibility for him that someone would have a cell phone that they didn’t leave on all the time. I’d get these annoyed voicemail messages from him, saying, “Why don’t you answer the phone? Where are you?”
It never occurred to me that I was obligated to keep the damned thing on constantly. I got it primarily for emergencies, when I was on the road, or on vacation.
Now, I turn the cell phone on once a day—to check for voicemail. It doesn’t get that much but I always check it anyway. That’s pretty much it.
I sometimes answer my phone. But I see it as entirely optional. I have a cell phone, no land line, so the cell number’s the one anyone has… but I only carry it with me occasionally, and so anyone important calling knows not to be surprised if I don’t pick up.
Even better, my office mate agrees. There are days we’ve turned the ringer off, and even more days when we just let it ring. [Admittedly, we share a line with an office down the hall; more often than not it’s for them, and they’d come let us know if it was actually for one of us.] More than once her students have answered our phone rather than sitting there while we ignore it. [This does have the advantage of driving home the “email us, don’t call us” point to students.]
My dad doesn’t answer his phone either. That’s why I haven’t bothered trying to speak to him for ten years. He’s so busy protecting himself against people he might not want to speak to that he barricades himself against people who might once have tried to stay in contact.
And his wife came into my ex-job last year bitching about why I never call. Gee, I wonder.
There’s a lot more baggage there, so this isn’t entirely phone-related. I’m just sayin’, is all.
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