My Phone-Call Anxiety Is Out of Control

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Dear James,

I avoid making and receiving phone calls. I mostly don’t answer. I feel trapped when on the phone because it’s difficult to extricate myself, and I feel burdened by the calls I must make or should make, whether to friends, doctors, or relatives. To avoid calls, I rely on texting way too much. I worry I’m on the road to isolation or hermetism. What should I do about this phone phobia?

Dear Reader,

Do you remember the days before texting, when everybody would just sit on public transport blaring away on their phone, quite blandly disinhibited, and you had no choice but to listen? To attend to these monologues and mouthings and maimed half-colloquies? What a depressing moment in human affairs: Everybody seemed to be telling a story about how clever/brave/sexy they were, or forensically maligning somebody else, or both.

So texting has at least restored to us something of the frigid, impersonal silence that is supposed to obtain when people ride the train together. But of course it has its problems too.

I like your list of burdensome calls: “friends, doctors, or relatives.” Very suggestive. For what it’s worth, I was a great phone avoider growing up. The hunted-animal response to the incoming call, and the sweating dread of the call you have to make: I relate. And I’m trying to remember how I got over it. I think I probably figured out—eventually—that the cellular damage of unmade and unanswered calls, the spoiled adrenaline in your veins, the shame residue, is worse than the awkwardness of just picking up the frigging phone and getting it done. So be good to yourself and break the cycle. Low-stakes calls first. You’ll get better at it, I promise.

Cocking an ear,

James

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