Phone-aphobia.

I hate the telephone. And I mean HATE. I'm sorry to use such an evil word, especially when the use of hate-related language appears to incite crazy people to do crazy things, at least according to NPR and my lefty facebook friends. But for this topic, that four letter word is necessary.

I will answer aforementioned subject of HATE now and then when it is absolutely necessary (i.e. I fear for the life of the person calling, the person calling is taking care of my child, or the person calling refuses to use email or text messaging and I will no longer be their friend if I never answer). But I've just never liked the phone and here are a few reasons why:

1) I can't HEAR what people are saying! And as a former Speech and Hearing Science graduate student, I can say with pompous and educated assurance that hearing is a VERY important part of communication. But because I am a people pleaser, I try to pretend I heard what the other person said, which gets awkward very fast. Example:
Other person: "So I remember you telling me about this great book recently, what was it called?"
Me: "Yeah, totally".
Other person: "ummm...no, I don't think that's what it was called".
Me: "Wait, what??".

2) I always start talking at the same time as the other person, which leads to lots of sputtering moments of awkwardness the resemble this conversation:
Me: "So..."
Other Person (synonymously): "Did I..."
Me: "You go ah...sigh"
Other person (synonymously): "DID I TELL YOU...wait, what?"
Me: long pregnant and confused pause. "YOU GO AHEAD!"
Other person: "so did I tell you about (insert story here)."
Me: complete silence b/c being both softspoken and forgetful, I completely forget what I was going to say in the first place.

3) As you may have noticed, I love to write. I have always been far better at expressing myself through writing. I've tried to learn to have more difficult conversations in person rather than in writing (also a challenge for a people pleaser) but at the same time, I have had some amazing communication over emails.

4) Now that I spend half of my time chasing a small person around the house with a wet rag to clean his bottom/mouth/hands of poo/spit-up/food, it's just plain easier to sit down and compose an email or text once he is asleep and not covered in the aforementioned substances.

This is not to say that I haven't had amazing phone conversations. And if I DO pick up the phone, you can be sure that I really would like to talk to you! And those of you who may be reading this from afar, I really do want to hear your voice once in awhile. Although I'd much prefer to see your lovely face.

I just felt the need to explain this once and for all, in the hopes of dispelling with the guilt trips I have so often gotten about never answering the phone. Plus, in this day and age, I think the electronically written word is just as valid a form of communication as the telephone.

And on that note, I'm going to go make some phone calls.