I’m generally never in a mood for a phone conversation. Especially, after a tiring movie + grocery shopping trip. That too, after a boring movie. Tonight, I just had too many calls that I purposefully couldn’t/didn’t answer.
Two friends tried calling me multiple times when I was at the supermarket, disrupting my podcast listening
People find it hard to understand that I just don’t want to talk on the phone. On top of that, I need to text them back and explain to both that I don’t want to talk. Otherwise, they would think that I’m trying to kill myself or simmering. That is one guilt trip.
I always wonder why people don’t ask by text if it’s okay to call? I don’t buy the argument that friends don’t feel the need to. I try to ask by text before, especially if I am calling randomly. What if someone is doing something that they don’t want to interrupt?
In my case, I hardly ever am free to talk or feel like talking.
Unless, it’s urgent, I don’t think phone conversations are necessary. My friends, if they know me, they should know that by now. People should respect others’ preferences and cooperate.
(Originally posted on Neverlast)
Showing posts with label telephobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label telephobia. Show all posts
How did it end up like this?
I can’t explain it. It’s part telephobia. It’s almost like selective telephobia. I didn’t pick up a call from my sister today. I sent her an SMS saying that I didn’t feel like talking. She was apparently just trying to wish me a happy Keralaite New Year, and was extremely disappointed.
The only calls that I pick up without much of a problem are those from my band mates and those from my friends from abroad (older friends). Sometimes, I pick up anonymous calls, and if I find that they are telemarketers, I hang up almost instantly. Not even a courtesy “No thanks!”
The persons who I make calls to are even more restrictive – band mates and and my friends from abroad. The calls to band mates are strictly business-like, whereas to my friends from abroad, I open up and talk a bit. No family. No best friends. No college mates. No colleagues/ex-colleagues.
Yet, I’m much better off talking to people who I’m comfortable with on text/video chat than anything else. I haven’t a fucking clue as to how things ended up like this.
The only calls that I pick up without much of a problem are those from my band mates and those from my friends from abroad (older friends). Sometimes, I pick up anonymous calls, and if I find that they are telemarketers, I hang up almost instantly. Not even a courtesy “No thanks!”
The persons who I make calls to are even more restrictive – band mates and and my friends from abroad. The calls to band mates are strictly business-like, whereas to my friends from abroad, I open up and talk a bit. No family. No best friends. No college mates. No colleagues/ex-colleagues.
Yet, I’m much better off talking to people who I’m comfortable with on text/video chat than anything else. I haven’t a fucking clue as to how things ended up like this.
There is something about Ray...
Ray and I hadn’t spoken in months. We were getting into a messy situation of how to break the incommunicado. Every couple of weeks or so, an SMS would arrive from him (or for him from me) asking how things were. There would be a customary reply which would be reciprocated by “Isn’t our friendship fading away?” message. We’d mutually agree that we needed to break the deadlock and start afresh. But we were hesitant to do so.
This status-quo lasted until this Sunday, when in a reply to a customary SMS, I told him about my newly-manifested telephobia. He was surprised and asked me if I was being irregular with my medications. I said I was alright otherwise except for this intense telephobia, especially with my family and friends. I added that I didn’t think that telephobia would manifest with him. I didn’t know why, but I was sure that it wouldn’t be the case.
That was the impetus that we needed. I called him to check if my prophecy would be true. It turned out to be true after all. We had a decidedly healthy conversation lasting almost half an hour, where we chatted like old bum-buddies. But we were careful to avoid the topics that would cause trauma to either side. That’s our forté. And that’s what probably lacking in the conversations with other people that I’m telephobic for!
At the end of it all, we are as good we have ever been! Cheers to me and Ray and our friendship!
This status-quo lasted until this Sunday, when in a reply to a customary SMS, I told him about my newly-manifested telephobia. He was surprised and asked me if I was being irregular with my medications. I said I was alright otherwise except for this intense telephobia, especially with my family and friends. I added that I didn’t think that telephobia would manifest with him. I didn’t know why, but I was sure that it wouldn’t be the case.
That was the impetus that we needed. I called him to check if my prophecy would be true. It turned out to be true after all. We had a decidedly healthy conversation lasting almost half an hour, where we chatted like old bum-buddies. But we were careful to avoid the topics that would cause trauma to either side. That’s our forté. And that’s what probably lacking in the conversations with other people that I’m telephobic for!
At the end of it all, we are as good we have ever been! Cheers to me and Ray and our friendship!
Telephobia
It’s a forgotten fact about my forgettable past. Yes, I used to be an introvert once. My tenure as a medical student and the responsibilities related to my sister’s marriage, which, in turn, was a result of the sheer ineptitude of my father in tact and intrafamilial affairs, had allowed my de-cocooning and metamorphosis into a social butterfly.
Most of my current friends haven’t a clue about this dark aspect of mine. Let me try to put it in a rather complex way: my past is not present in their past related to me because I was not present in their past at that stage. Anyway, my introversion remanifested around the time I had to deal with the mental trauma related to Vinokur’s illness/visit and the eventual separation; it has now established itself to be the primary trait in my present day life.
One of the characteristic features of this shade of my personality is my fear to have phone conversations. A Google search tells me that this is a prevalent, relatively well-known phobia and is referred to as phone phobia, telephone phobia, or telephobia. My telephobia is currently rooted in my fear to have conversations with people who I have a difficult job convincing my side of things in traumatic topics, which include my career choices, familial duties, and depressive tendencies.
Although my best friends (Chuck, Ray, and May) have the level of understanding with me that should enable a conversation, I still fear the trauma associated with the reestablishment of a torn umbilical cord — nature lets the umbilical cord atrophy, we try to put it back together. What I’m trying to say is that - it's that hard for me to speak to anyone, even my best friends.
My telephobia, which is an element of the broad umbrella of social phobia, is acute with my family, relatives, and friends from my past. Please note that the modifier ‘from my past’ was not initially meant for the former two items in my three-item list, but can encapsulate them as well, because of the obvious — I have honestly moved on from my family and relatives, haven’t I?
Thus I don’t take calls from my past and definitely don’t make calls to those associated with it. Simple. Avoid trauma — the reincarnations of the past that I have left behind for good, even though a very tiny part of I may still want that past to be a part of my present.
When not at its inglorious best, my telephobia manifests as rudeness or curtness. Sometimes my perplexity as to what necessitated a phone conversation in the first place, when we could have perfectly avoided it, seeps through, you see. I often forget to sugarcoat my words in the social context and I misunderstood as the consequence. People fail to understand that I’ve never had that part in my machinery to start with — so how can have the oil to lubricate it?
Maybe this post is not cogent and is rather disoriented. But the final message is this — for telephobic folks like me, SMSes, e-mails, and even face-to-face conversations work better. There it is for you; that little snippet of me is out.
Most of my current friends haven’t a clue about this dark aspect of mine. Let me try to put it in a rather complex way: my past is not present in their past related to me because I was not present in their past at that stage. Anyway, my introversion remanifested around the time I had to deal with the mental trauma related to Vinokur’s illness/visit and the eventual separation; it has now established itself to be the primary trait in my present day life.
One of the characteristic features of this shade of my personality is my fear to have phone conversations. A Google search tells me that this is a prevalent, relatively well-known phobia and is referred to as phone phobia, telephone phobia, or telephobia. My telephobia is currently rooted in my fear to have conversations with people who I have a difficult job convincing my side of things in traumatic topics, which include my career choices, familial duties, and depressive tendencies.
Although my best friends (Chuck, Ray, and May) have the level of understanding with me that should enable a conversation, I still fear the trauma associated with the reestablishment of a torn umbilical cord — nature lets the umbilical cord atrophy, we try to put it back together. What I’m trying to say is that - it's that hard for me to speak to anyone, even my best friends.
My telephobia, which is an element of the broad umbrella of social phobia, is acute with my family, relatives, and friends from my past. Please note that the modifier ‘from my past’ was not initially meant for the former two items in my three-item list, but can encapsulate them as well, because of the obvious — I have honestly moved on from my family and relatives, haven’t I?
Thus I don’t take calls from my past and definitely don’t make calls to those associated with it. Simple. Avoid trauma — the reincarnations of the past that I have left behind for good, even though a very tiny part of I may still want that past to be a part of my present.
When not at its inglorious best, my telephobia manifests as rudeness or curtness. Sometimes my perplexity as to what necessitated a phone conversation in the first place, when we could have perfectly avoided it, seeps through, you see. I often forget to sugarcoat my words in the social context and I misunderstood as the consequence. People fail to understand that I’ve never had that part in my machinery to start with — so how can have the oil to lubricate it?
Maybe this post is not cogent and is rather disoriented. But the final message is this — for telephobic folks like me, SMSes, e-mails, and even face-to-face conversations work better. There it is for you; that little snippet of me is out.
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