“The phone works both ways.” When my mother told that to me it freed me, cursed me, helped me and hindered me. I wonder what she would say, now that we have gone through answering machines, remote access answering machines, pagers, cellular phones, E-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, and online video communication. It is absolutely amazing there are so many different ways a person can choose to communicate. Oh, there is that old school way of keeping in touch. Do you remember what that ancient disappearing art is? When is the last time you put pen to paper and sent a hand written note?
People probably think I am rude on the phone. How does one admit that phone conversations just basically make me nervous? Admittedly I am not as outgoing as I should be when it comes to keeping in contact with people I know. What most do not realize is I have a phone phobia. I am okay with hello and goodbye but that stuff that happens in the middle practically paralyzes my fingers from pushing buttons. When it happens that I do make that call my palms are sweaty, my heart rate is increased, and my breathing is strained, as panic begins to swell within me. Almost every call I make I hope for voicemail. Before I make a call I have prepared myself to leave a message. When a person answers my focus is thrown. I stammer trying to hide that my game plan has been shot full of holes with the sound of a person’s real voice. Most of the time my goal at that point is to get off of the phone as soon as possible.
Something I dislike is when people are multi-tasking whilst conversing. What that tells me is that they are not listening. If I have gotten past my initial panic of dialing and relax enough to be able to have a conversation nothing pains me more than after going through a minute or two of releasing emotion filled words only to hear the person on the other end say ‘what?’ If whatever you are doing on the other side has you so preoccupied then just let me know and I will let you go. In the old days people used a phone desk. They stopped everything to talk on the phone. Please do not misunderstand me. I have done plenty of dish washing, house cleaning and ironing while I have been on the phone. I actually prefer it. There are three people that I know that I pray have time to kill that I try to get a hold of when I have a mundane task. They are the talkers – my sister, my father and my kind of brother Samory. Phone calls with any of these three sometimes end only when my battery dies. There have been times that I have had to plug in. My sister is full of details. She can make going to the grocery store an event. My father is the philosopher storyteller. He has not rung my phone for over a decade. Some stories I have heard many times but they always seem fresh, because details are always changing. Samory is a storyteller, philosopher, or the guy trying to figure something out.
I have a feeling because off all that extra stuff that I do like writing, doing stand-up, acting and Time Slot people think I would be a talker as well. That is not necessarily the case. It takes a while for me to get revved up. Then I burn out quickly. Those true talkers make marathon phone callers. I am a sprinter.
The weird thing is how many people’s numbers that I have programmed in my phone compared to how many are actually used. The phone may work both ways but over the years I have gotten frustrated with being the one to initiate to the point where I have all but given up. The new numbers seem to pop up the most. The ones that I have had the longest do not seem to ring anymore. I am kind of stuck as to whether make their pocket ring or purge. ~Melik / me2upro.com
~Melik / me2upro.com
This was originally July 18, 2010 – July 31, 2010 edition
