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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate making phone calls

56 replies

MoggyMittens23 · 31/10/2022 11:30

Even if it's just to book a check up at the dentist, or to call the pharmacy. I HATE it! I put it off until I can't anymore, and I try and get them all done in one go and then feel proud of myself after. I try and outsource calls to British gas/Sky etc to DH. Anyone else feel like this? it's like I have to psych myself up!

OP posts:
waterwitch · 31/10/2022 11:32

Yep, I feel exactly like this. I tried to work out why, and concluded that I sometimes find it difficult to hear, so now I try to do all phone calls from a quiet room.

vanillasunshine · 31/10/2022 11:35

I have telephone phobia too.

MistyGreenAndBlue · 31/10/2022 11:36

I'm usually ok once I'm on the call, but I do get unreasonably worked up beforehand. No idea why.

asblindasabat · 31/10/2022 11:37

Yes! I’m even so nervous whilst on the phone that my voice starts to go all shaky!

Tired2tired · 31/10/2022 11:39

I have this I think due to my autism. Its awful and makes even simple things an absolute stress. Most get outsourced to dh but I've paid a random woman online to ring up and pretend to be me before 😬 when it couldn't be my husband as was suppose to be me so needed a woman's voice.

drawstringbags · 31/10/2022 11:41

Yes, but I suffer from anxiety and so when I'm going through a difficult patch find things like this really tricky for no apparent reason. Also things like filling the car with petrol. I know it's ridiculous, and I push myself to do them, but it is what it is.

SirenSays · 31/10/2022 11:42

I wouldn't mind as much but lately they're all super awkward. I just had to make a call and we had such a bad connection we were just yelling Can you hear me?! at each other for a while. I hung up and called back and got someone else, then had to put him on hold because she had called me back 😅

Mangogogogo · 31/10/2022 11:43

I was like this but now I have to call people for work I often find it easier now just to call and talk properly if an email won’t cut it!

i call people constantly for clients so it’s completely normal. You can apply to the council and other places online to tell them someone will be calling for you!

i also find that when my clients call people talk to them like shit and when I get on the phone suddenly they can’t do enough for us!

bailarbailar · 31/10/2022 11:51

Yes me too. I have dodgy hearing so put it down to a phobia developing from that. I very rarely have issues actually hearing once on the phone but the fear of asking the phone call makes me put it off and off. Moving house was a nightmare for phone calls

Mercurial123 · 31/10/2022 11:51

YABU it's a basic life skill you can't message everyone.

AriettyHomily · 31/10/2022 11:51

Hate it, currently waiting for an adult ASD assessment

TeresaCrowd · 31/10/2022 11:52

I think it’s being put in the spot on the phone as so many people don’t take ‘I need to look that up and get back to you’ as a valid response on the phone. I also have bad experiences of people saying I’d agreed to something I very much hadn’t so now am loathe to use the phone and everything gets followed up with an email anyway. Yes that’s likely my anxiety but it’s come from real experiences it’s not totally irrational.

Its particularly bad now the GP has gone from advance appointments being bookable online to fill out the online form and they will call you back, as when they call you back it’s usually mega inconvenient and doesn’t allow you to discuss whether what they are offering you is suitable, so you have to say you’ll call them back and the phone tennis continues for ages of just leaving messages. Waste of time.

Alertthecorgis · 31/10/2022 11:52

I dislike phone calls. I don’t like the unpredictability of them.

RascafríaMom · 31/10/2022 11:53

Yep. ADHD related anxiety. I cannot do phone calls, especially not when not a native speaker of the local language where i live. I'll go in person if i have to in order to avoid a phone.

Sparklesocks · 31/10/2022 11:56

I don’t ‘enjoy’ them as such but they’re very valuable, I find you can often solve an issue in a 5 min phone call which may have been several emails exchanged back and forth over multiple days. And I find I’m able to negotiate money related stuff over the phone - such as finding a better renewal price, or them removing a charge, that isn’t possible over email.

Oysterbabe · 31/10/2022 11:57

I hate it too. I have to make a fair few calls at work but I still hate it.

To hate making phone calls
ArseInTheCoOpWindow · 31/10/2022 12:00

Me too.

Befire texts and emails l never picked up a phone. Would screen all calls on ansaphone.

RishisProudMum · 31/10/2022 12:00

YANBU. I have no anxiety or MH issues, I just find speaking on the phone to a boring regressive waste of time.

Unless it’s part of one’s job, I’m not getting why you’d have to do it if you didn’t want to, though. All of the things you mention in the OP can be done online. It’s 2022!

Original poster
MoggyMittens23 · 31/10/2022 12:13

Alertthecorgis · 31/10/2022 11:52

I dislike phone calls. I don’t like the unpredictability of them.

Yes!! I think this is it.

seems like it’s a thing for a lot if people

OP posts:
Original poster
MoggyMittens23 · 31/10/2022 12:14

Sparklesocks · 31/10/2022 11:56

I don’t ‘enjoy’ them as such but they’re very valuable, I find you can often solve an issue in a 5 min phone call which may have been several emails exchanged back and forth over multiple days. And I find I’m able to negotiate money related stuff over the phone - such as finding a better renewal price, or them removing a charge, that isn’t possible over email.

No I completely agree they are valuable. Issues definitely get solved quicker (once you finally get through!!)

OP posts:
MichaelAndEagle · 31/10/2022 12:14

How old are you OP? I'm 41 so a millennial (just) its a common trait supposedly.

RaraRachael · 31/10/2022 12:15

Me too! I was so glad when texting and emailing became a thing. Just a pity they weren't around for the first 40 years of my life.
For some strange reason, my mother loved phoning people and ridiculed me because I didn't.

SalviaOfficinalis · 31/10/2022 12:18

I hate it too.

Best to just bite the bullet and do it… just gets worse for me if I leave it.

I had to phone the GP to book my cervical screening recently and had to say “cervical screening” 4 times before giving up and saying “smear test”. The receptionist seemed to have never heard of “cervical screening”…. It’s been quite a few years now since it changed.

I find exchanges like the above very awkward but I’m trying to mentally brush it off more - it’s not my fault she didn’t know what I was talking about.

familyissues12345 · 31/10/2022 12:21

Yes me. It's so bad I have avoided making doctors appointments as over Covid times they have always involved having to have a phone triage with the GP - so the stress of a call plus the anxiety whilst I'm waiting for the phone to ring (bloody awful!)

PinkRiceKrispies · 31/10/2022 12:23

Hate it but then I am really self conscious of my voice as always told I have an unusual accent and even laughed at on the phone once because of it 😔