Does anyone else hate talking on the phone?

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I cannot stand using the phone. Even if it is to a family member, I cannot stand it. It makes me feel dreadfully uncomfortable. In a face-to-face conversation, you can do other things. You can walk away. You can easily hear. On a phone, however, you need to concentrate. You can't simply "hang up", they'll call back. It can be difficult to make out voices.

Face-to-face, you know who someone is from what they are wearing, how they look, how they speak, smell, act, etcetera. With a phone, the only real clue is the voice and usually the quality of the call isn't too great to begin with, making it even more difficult. That aspect of the unknown threatens me.

I really dislike the idea of someone calling me unexpectedly in my home. I only like my social interractions to be in places of my choosing at times of my choosing, most certainly never at home. The fact that someone can call me at any time and intrude and interrupt makes me despise phones.

But most of all, I hate official, business calls. I have a constant feeling that I am "doing it wrong", that the person on the other end won't like me, that they won't be able to hear me, or that I won't be able to hear them and asking too many times "could you repeat that, please?" will anger them. The very thought of an official call just makes me want to vomit. I ask other people to make calls for me, but it's rare they understand.

Has anyone got any ideas as to how to make it clearer just how difficult I find using the phone? It really makes me very nervous, panicked and ill. It's something I would like to avoid at all costs and so I don't even own a mobile telephone.

I hate the telephone, but have gotten much better at using it. Mainly because I have to do all my own appointment setting and what not. I don't have any friends so calling them is a non issue haha.

I dont mind calling my grandmother or mum but that's it.

I usually don't like to mingle with people. I have very few friends. I don't like to talk much. I run out of the discussion matter very quickly as well although I read enough.

But biggest problem is I hate talking on phone from my childhood when I rarely had to attend a phone call. In my workplace most of my colleagues like to talk on phone. They talk on company landlines, they have 2 to 3 mobile sets and they go always on long discussions.

I live in Abu Dhabi UAE. Here it is a status symbol as well to talk always on mobile phone and give a busy business man look.

But my annoyance with phone talk make me misfit in the society. Times and again I am asked to call different people for work requirement, I have to make up myself 100 times before every phone call.

Is it curable??

I hate it, but I prefer it to face to face communication though, because I don't have to worry about emulating NT body language.

The thing that I hate about talking on the phone is that it's talking simply for the purpose of talking, which I never do. If I'm going to be around people, I have to be doing something, like watching TV or a movie, playing a game, or eating. I'm not going to sit down and talk just for the sake of talking. That's just boring. I would rather memorize pi to the 20th digit.

I dont like talking on the phone to people I dont know or know well. It just feels weird and I end up saying things the wrong way. Mom makes me talk to the bank on the phone for her so I can "get into the habit of it", but I dont think this is anything that I could habitize...I just feel like such a freak talking to some unknown person whom I cant see over phone. also talking to my sister is hard on the phone too cause she wants me to carry the bulk of the conversation then gets upset when I dont ask her the right questions, but she wont tell me what she wants me to know unless I ask her the "right questions". How am i supposed to ask for what I dont know to ask????
I think sometimes she expects too much out of me, socailly.

I've always hated it.

I hate talking to strangers on the phone with a passion. I'd much rather speak to strangers in real life.

I hate it, especially on a regular basis. I like to make all important calls within a close time window, usually on sundays. I pass all relevant information, and keep small talk at a minimum. When I do have to make calls out of the ordinary, I try to keep it under a minute, with the goal being around 30 seconds: Greetings, pass information, ask if information is understood, ask for questions, goodbye.

I hate it.

I used to work in a call centre, I found it very difficult but I managed because I knew what I was supposed to say and how to lead the conversation, where as actually talking on the phone normally is impossible for me because I have no way of knowing how the conversation is going to go and I can't see body language to try to get an idea of what's happening during the conversation.

Since being unemployed my ability to talk on the phone has become far worse to the point where I can't use a phone at all any more - a major issue given as it means I can't answer the phone when potential employers call to arrange an interview, and potential employers seem to refuse to use email to contact people. Of course given as I used to work in a call centre people find it difficult to understand that my problems with telephones isn't just being shy or uncomfortable, it is actually a total inability to understand how to hold telephone conversations which in turn also means major anxiety.

It also drives me mental that most companies don't have real customer support via email - often you email a company and they just tell you to telephone them, it took months of complaints to get my energy supplier to stop telling me to telephone them. It also annoys me that to apply for ESA (Employment Support Allowance - disability benefits) you have to be able to use a telephone...the fact I can't use a telephone is why I'm unemployed and so why I need ESA!

My boyfriend doesn't quite seem to understand my issues with the phone, he phones me sometimes and doesn't understand why I sometimes don't answer or why I only give one word answers, or if he calls a company on my behalf and they ask to talk to me he'll try to hand the phone over to me. In the bank the other day opening a new account they asked for my telephone number, I refused to give it which was fine, but then he offered to give them my mobile number *sigh*

I hate it quite a bit because it makes me uncomfortable even if I'm talking to people I know well. So I like that I have a phone that is easy to text with because then if I am meeting up with someone or whatever I can make plans without talking on the phone

I'm sorry, but this topic made me laugh severely. And, I'm not being rude. It just reminds me so much of myself and how much I hate talking on the phone. I've always accepted it as something I hate doing for normal reasons, such as the fact it rings too much, the fact I can never understand what is being said, the fact phones should be used for more important conversations than what your dog did at the park, and things like that. But, I developed a hatred for phones because of telemarketing. I probably hated the phone before then too because phone numbers are harder to remember than a website like this one. Facebook is ultra easy to remember. I'm a bit lazy but I've always failed at math and anything with numbers.

Yes. Makes me irritable and impatient.

But my iPhone is the 'most bestest' thing in the world to me (games!), go figure.

I used to hate talking to strangers on the phone, although that only changes because I found methods that helped me handle it better. Those methods where to make sure I had a clear idea in my head of the questions I wanted to ask and to prepare for possible answers, this made to potential conversation seem like less of a black void of uncertainty.