The telephone

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This is a toughie, but I'll take a stab at it...

First off the ringing sound on the phones in our house hurt my ears. (I have the ringer turned off after only giving it a couple tries) I'm too busy plugging my ears. That takes two hands. I have no free hands to pick up the phone. Now if I really wanted to shut it up I could answer it and just hang up... But I know better than to do that...

I figure either my grandma can answer it or the answering machine.
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Why I don't enjoy phone conversation? First off I have to hold the darn thing up to my ear... If you're like my dad, he seems to always be yelling into the phone... I have to put phone up against my ear, because it is less strain on my arm and it is slightly easier to hear, but for whatever reasons my ear gets plugged. I have to switch off ears and arms to maintain comfort. Our speaker phone doesn't work well. All of our phones are limited by a cord.

Conversationwise: someone here pretty much it the nail on the head with casual conversation. One non autistic friend liked to bore me down for hours with such content. Like I really cared about her social life but I was too polite to object. Thing is she seemed to expect me to go in as much detail with my social life. *awkward silence*

Eventually we got:
"I dunno you have anything to say?"
"Do you have anything cool to say?"
"No not really. How about you?"
"Hmm, I wanted to hear more about you..."

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Making calls

1. dialing. Dialing makes me anxious. For some reason I fear I'm going to stumble and fatthumb and push the wrong keys. Also under tension it seems like I cannot find the number I am looking for immediatly. Knowing I'm on a deadline of a few seconds, hastens me and mounts up anxiety. If I have to copy from the phone book, not only am I unable to find the single number I want, but I can't seem to find the whole number along a row of seemingly random stuff... I have a hard time finding things in long columns of data without giving lots of my focus and time. Even if I highlighted the number there's a delay between when I read number and when I push it. I have to go one number at a time. I'm stressed out because if I don't go fast enough I have to start over.

2. Number pushing and waiting..........."Press 1 if you'd like to contact [insert person or service]. Press 2 for [insert reason] Press 3, press 4, press 5....Press zero if you've long since forgotten what you were originally wanting while listening to this number crap...." Not to mention I may be put on hold for a long time. While I am put on hold I'm daydreaming of much better things I could be doing with my time than listening to crappy jazz that makes me gag...

3. I get to said person. By now I've long since forgotten what I was going to say. "Hello? Hello?" Okay I remember something and studder over it. I can see what I want in my head visually but I can't put it into words...

4. The person tells me, "Oh, you need to contact this place, here's the number to call" Listening and writing at the same time has not been a strength...

5. I call them and they want to point me back to where I came from. "I say, I just contacted there and they told me to go back to you..." I may or may not go back and say, "Yeah I contacted that number and they pointed me back here...."

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Leaving voicemails:

While I am focused on trying to cram as much info after the beep in a quick message, I suddenly forget what I wanted to say... I bumble over, but I forget our phone number in the process... It's rather awkward to have to ask grandma to tell me our number even though I would know it on an otherwise not so stressed moment.

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I hope this helps a little. I sometimes call my parents but that's about it...... Other times I only use the phone if I am forced to.

I hate phones, unless it's someone I'm comfortable talking too like my mom...my son ignores it. We screen our calls with the answering machine.