I was doing some web surfing when I came across a blog post written about why D. Keith Robinson hates telephones. Well, not telephones exactly, just telephone calls. I have to wholeheartedly agree with his whole post.

I hate talking on the phone. When I hear my cellphone buzzing, my stomach starts tying in knots. “Who’s calling me?”

I rarely ask people to call me, so a phone call is never a welcomed event in my daily life. I hate chit-chat. I hate trying to find something to say in the awkward silences between topics.

The worst part is not really being able to see someone’s reaction. I get nervous when I’m writing emails and talking on the phone because I have no idea how someone is honestly reacting to what I’ve said. They can type or say that they are fine but if I was face-to-face with them I could tell.

The weirdest part about all of this is that my favorite form of communication is probably instant message. It’s faster than email and I can see how quickly someone is responding. I can tell a lot by the spaces of time in my instant message conversations—How long my friend is thinking about what they’re about to say lends a lot to the gravity of the conversation. (Especially now with the “Typing…” note that AIM/Trillian gives you as your friend is typing. You know they haven’t just stepped away.)

After reading this article and seeing the responses, I feel better about my disdain for the telephone. I’m not so weird—even for a girl—to not really like talking on the phone. “Mandy never picks up her phone,” I hear it all the time. It’s starting to become a personality trait for me: “Who are you?” “The girl that never picks up her phone.”

Tags: communication, email, phone

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 2:19 pm and is filed under communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.