Phone Calls and Bryce

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (Disney Gold Classic Collection)I’m a chronically chatty person by nature. I’m the person who spent more than seven hours on the phone talking to my family on Mother’s Day while I was on my mission (count ’em: seven. We get two phone calls a year as missionaries: Mother’s Day and Christmas. I made them count. Plus I had two families to talk to.) In high school, I was often found chatting away on the phone with my friends for hours on end. (Almost always girls–I didn’t talk to guys that much on the phone. Go figure.) Anyway, this is just to say that I’m comfortable on the phone.

Usually.

If I don’t know the person I’m calling, or if I’m at all nervous about potential rejection, I am deathly afraid of telephones. In high school, this led to some long drawn out sessions while I tried to gather the courage to call someone up to ask her on a date. I remember writing down different scenarios, making notes about what I could say, just in case something went wrong. Yeah. I was that kind of guy.

I no longer make notes, but I still am terrified of phone rejection. What’s up with that? How can I go from being this phone-confident person to being this guy who can barely bring himself to hit the numbers? I try to avoid calling customer service reps unless I’m really angry–that’s the only way to really combat the nerves that I’ve found, but it’s not like I can get angry any time I need to call someone. Maybe I’m the Incredible Hulk of the phone world . . .

I assume I’m not alone in this regard. Anyone else have any phone horror stories they’d like to share?

6 thoughts on “Phone Calls and Bryce”

  1. You’re definitely not alone. I can spend hours on the phone if I’m talking to my mom, my sister, or a select few friends. Otherwise, I’m pretty phone-phobic. The worst is when I’ve finally psyched myself up to make a call, and prepared what to say, and the person isn’t home and I get an answering machine. I’ve been known to hang up in situations like these, rehearse what to say to the answering machine, and try again. The worst is if I do that, and then the person picks up the second time. It completely flusters me, and I end up feeling like I don’t make any sense, because it’s not going as expected. Just awful. I was thrilled when pizza places started allowing internet orders. Yay for pizza without having to actually talk to a person!

  2. I used to work as a concierge at a 5-star hotel, which is basically making reservations for people: airline, limo, restaurant, snowmobiling, whatever; yet, I absolutely hate ordering pizza on the phone, or any other type of take-out. I don’t know why, I just do.

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