Fear of the phone?

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I've used the phone three times in the last 14+ years... two of those calls lasting less then 30 seconds.

Older thread but I wanted to get into it. I hate using the phone; don't so much mind answering it because I just hand it to someone else. If I have to make a call it takes me hours to get up the courage because I know I'm going to mess it up. And, if someone asks me a question I have to think about I stutter and stammer and sound like an idiot. Had a woman ask my name the other day and she didn't understand what I said so she asked again which caused me anxiety so I stuttered through it...just wish she could have saved her laughter till after she hung up.

when younger i had a fear of it. not so much now. I often do not answer it.
But i find it easier to just focus on words than words and faces, so it allows me some contact at a comfortable distance that enables me to process what is being said.
I do have a tendency to monologue however.

Ugh, the phone! My worst enemy!

I hate talking on the phone. When I have to do it, I can say everything I need to say in under 30 seconds, usually. I don't know how to chit-chat, and will never do it. I am very uncomfortable speaking to people I don't know.

What I hate about it is when I need to call someone for tech support and either they ask questions I don't know how to answer, or they prove themselves to be idiots right off the bat. I had a the following conversation with a moron at Comcast cable company, after having brought home a new modem to replace a defective one:

"You gave us the wrong power adapter for this modem. It got hot and a wisp of smoke came out of it. It had the wrong polarity for the way the modem is wired."

"Have you checked your plugs?"

Slam!

Yes, you ******* moron, everything in my house has blown a transformer because our plugs are wired up wrong. How do these people get a job?

I have enough trouble dealing with regular people, but idiots like that make me upset. I hate getting upset. So I don't use the phone much.

On the other hand, I have a friend who has one of those ear attachments, because he spends so much time on the phone, it saves precious seconds that might be wasted picking the phone up and putting it down. He talks more on the phone in any given week than I have in a quarter century.

I cant do it either. I find it very difficult to speak in any social situation but the phone is just ridiculously difficult.

The phone is made by the devil himself. I always use MSN to speak to people whenever possible, the phone is usually a last resort.

Yea I hate answering the phone when im depressed or anxious.

There are a FEW messages where I would rather phone than talk - but that is sending, not receiving. I hate answering. For a while I got a coworker very angry - he would call to tell me what I was doing wrong, I would let the machine catch it, tyhen respond when I was at peak energy and resistance. He felt that was unfair - I was supossed to let him work me over.

When dialing, I have to sit down, breathe, look up the number, check it, recheck it, then dial - and hope nobody but a machine answers.

Wow! And I thought I was the only one that hated the phone!!

I can talk to people I know OK on the phone but not to any great degree, I always have difficulty knowing what to say or when to speak. My sister inlaw used to phone our house and ask to speak to me but I was never ever even slightly comfortable with it. Unless I know the person really well I can't talk on the phone at all. If someone calls our house I let my husband get it, it's usually for him anyway.

Work is often a struggle too especially if the receptionist and everyone else is out of the office. Those are the worst because they aren't for me and often they want to know something that I can't answer. The only way I can cope with that is to take a message but I even suck at that because I miss important details like their name or where they're from.. D'oh. Not the best look!!

My job has improved immensely since they installed a phone line for me because before that I would have to take my co-workers calls and he used to get heaps of calls.. At least now when I answer my phone I know that it's for me.. lol. Still hate answering it though, it's such a distraction and it jolts me from my seat almost every time it rings.

Also hate it when people leave a message for you to phone them back, makes me pretty anxious but I have improved. I used to put off phoning people but nowadays I do it straight away just to get it over with which helps with the anxiety.

I hate the phone too. Growing up, I wasn't allowed to answer it because it doubled as my mother's professional phone. Then came cell phones, and now I just check voice and texts, because even talking to my family causes me terrible stress.

Me too. I have come to hate the phone more and more over the years.

I've been known to put off business calls until it's ridiculously too late. And then have to spend half the call repairing the damage I did by procrastinating.

Social calls, I very rarely make them.

Looking at my caller ID - the only people who call me are my mother (All the Time), my daughter away at college, the x with whom I am sharing custody of a young child, my other kid calling me for a ride. And telemarketers/wrong numbers.

Some guy called me a while back - showed the # but not the name. My daughter was home on break and asked me if I wanted to take the call, I said no and she misunderstood, answered & tried to give it to me. I was wildly gesturing for her to go away, say I wasn't home, etc. but she kept trying to give it to me (she'd already told the caller I was home, so she didn't really know what else to do) so I ran to my bed and got under the quilt with the pillow over my head. She gave me the phone and I pressed the off button. Instant relief. Daughter was shocked at my bad manners (I didn't raise her that way for sure!) but whatever. The person never called back - fine with me.

Other times in my life it's been different. However, I've never been on the receiving end of many calls. People aren't really led to seek me out, unless for sexual attraction or because they want something from me - unless I have a boyfriend, the phone's rarely been ringing for me unless it was my mom or now that she is away at school, it may be my daughter. (When my daughter still lived at home, and when she's been home on break, she got a lot of calls - she's quite social / sociable.) My sons don't get calls often, and I definitely don't - except that my mom & daughter call me, probably once a day on average. That's probably why whenever the phone rings nowadays it's like an alien sound - startles me badly and makes me irritated.

Caller ID is great but before that, I used to screen all my calls with the answering machine.

When my mother calls me I need to scream and curse her out for a moment before I'm able to pick up the phone and greet her. Basically if it isn't my daughter {or one of my sons, but they don't call me often b/c they live here}, I don't want to answer, and I'd rather communicate with anyone & everyone thru email or text anyway. Or face to face.

I hate answering my home phone. It's never for me and I often forget to pass on the message. I always forget to ask who it is, if they would like to leave their number or a message and kick myself for doing so.
I can call people on my mobile, but if it's someone I don't know calling me I press the hang up button.

I hate talking on the phone, with a passion. One of my three friends loves to talk on the phone. She phones me 6 times a day. I answer two of her calls. I have better things to do, than talk on the phone, for 30 minutes at a time, 6 times a day.

I hate answering the phone - the ring usually startles me. Now I keep the ringer off and watch for incoming calls from time-to-time. I prefer texting though.

I'm alright with talking on the phone as long as the conversation is either short and to the point, or is about my special interest. What irritates me is the phone ringing, as well as trying to understand the person on the other end. I often end up asking the person on the other end to repeat something over and over again because I didn't process what they were saying quickly enough. I try to minimize all of the outside stimuli, i.e. noise, light, smell, etc. in order to be able to focus on the conversation. I used to absolutely hate talking on the phone with strangers, but now I don't have as much of a problem with it. I still might get a bit tense and anxious, though, but not as severely as in the past.