Why I Hate the Telephone

I had difficulty communicating on the telephone for a long time. While working at a call center, I became proficient at handling incoming calls, but making outgoing calls continued to be a hurdle for me. The advent of texting was a relief, as it made reaching out much easier.

I dislike the telephone because of the unpredictability of it, and I often have to work out a script in my head to try to cope with a conversation. You've got me thinking though, because I can talk to people face to face. Maybe I'm like you, and I need the physical cues. I'm so annoyed with my car dealership as they give you a link to arrange your car service online, but it only gets you to fill in a form and they'll then ring you,, and it's not how I want to book my service. I would love to work on the IT service desk at my employer, but it would cause so much anxiety having to speak on the phone. Online chat would be great

I have always said I would walk a mile to talk to someone in person instead of on the phone. Exactly because I can't see them. The advent of texting was great. I also have trouble getting things straight in my head, if I send you a text or an email it probably took me 20 minutes to write it and I probably read it 20 times before I sent it. It is rather annoying. 🙂

I hate the phone with a passion. I'm surprised I lasted almost 5 years at being a call centre agent but I was ok receiving incoming calls but don't ask me to call out. I also found out recently I'm on the autism spectrum.

I also hate making phone calls. When I have to call strangers or companies, I always have to write down some keywords or half sentences in the order of what I'm gonna say or ask. I'm scared what I am telling is a total mess if I don't get the correct order of sentences out of my mouth. And I might forget to ask or say important thing, which I then notice after I ended the call. If I can E-mail it, I prefer emailing it, it gives me the time to write down exactly what I wanna ask. Few years ago our son was diagnosed with ASD. I was never tested, but when we learned more about it, I noticed a lot of things that also applied to me.

When my husband died and I had to pick up and carry on his manufacturing business (I had been a 'kept wife' for 17 yrs!), I STILL hated dealing by phone. However, I also had to create a new "motto" and new 'self-description." My motto became: "I have no choice." If a supplier or customer had to be called.... I'd still postpone for a while, then: "I have no choice" so I'd make the call. After 13 years, it has gotten LESS fraught but I still would rather see the person! My new self-description was "ths youngish widow who did NOT resist asking for help." (HATE it, but can do it now... much of the time!) Bill, after reading your Amazon sample, and immediately ordering your book, I spent the last half-hour enjoying -- and getting some eye-openers! -- the first several chapter... Had to finally put it down because work calls...

Part of my problem with the phone is that I have very little capability of remembering information that is shared with me verbally. When I am with the person speaking, I can remember their body position, their facial expressions, their gestures, and other such cues. I may not be able to process what those mean as a model as to what they are thinking, but remembering the visual cues I saw, even if I was not looking at you directly, will help me remember what you said. If there was a miscommunication, I can take the new conversation as use that to inform my interpretation of the first conversation. None of that is available to me with a phone. Podcasts are also totally useless to me.

Thanks for signposting this channel. Three weeks ago aged 47 I was diagnosed with quite profound ASD. I always knew something wasn't quite right and have spent a lot of my life in what I now realise was a meltdown state. The diagnosis actually knocked me harder than I expected and has sent me into a bit of a mini melt. I had and still have avoided diving into Google or looking for any answers other than my own internal dialogue and introspection. Anyway! I'm useless at reading books as I get bogged down in the threads, but just wanted to say that just the fact you're out there and have made something of your life gives me hope for the future. Now I'm no longer exhausting myself wearing that mask, things suddenly look possible.

My daughter has ASD and I am always learning from her. Thank you for this wonderful video. She sent it to me. ❤😊

When I was growing up in the 90s, my mom eventually noticed my hesitancy to make calls on the phone (and being the 90s, there weren't many other options). I could only make a call somewhat more easily if the other person was expecting me to call them back. Otherwise I would worry that I was interrupting/bothering them, or that the person would be upset or something ... because surely the pizza place has better things to do than answer the phone to take a pizza order. Even if I was calling my best friends, it wasn't easy. My mom took me to see a psychiatrist (or psychologist, I'm not sure which, doesn't matter), and it seemed that this problem was something she had never seen or heard of before. Through exposure therapy I was able to make some progress, but it was really stressful for me and really hard to keep it up when not in a session. After graduating university, I worked in tech support for a large enterprise database product. I was good at the technical aspects, but my tickets stayed open too long, making my numbers look bad, because it was so difficult for me to call them back and confirm the issue was resolved and the ticket could be closed. I lasted four years, but almost the entire time was stressful: I didn't like to use the phone, I wasn't keen on talking to customers, and I didn't like to be under pressure to bring a production system back online. After I left, I went into a different field and was still working with clients, but typically on-site, which meant mostly in-person communication, which is a lot easier. We still have stressful projects at times, but it's so much easier to deal with than tech support. Anyway, now that we have more ubiquitous communication with wide ranges of people, it's nice to see that I wasn't alone, I'm not the only person with this issue. While I've never been tested for ASD, my wife has said she has wondered ever since we met whether I might be (mildly?) on the spectrum. It's very nice to have a loving wife who is usually willing to make calls on my behalf, although I hate to admit it probably would be better if she pushed me to do it on occasion. In return, I make every effort to handle the once-in-a-blue-moon calls that she finds difficult (such as calling a local vet to handle the sudden death of her dog)

I absolutely hate phone calls. Almost everyone that knows me, knows to SMS/Email/etc in lieu of a phone call. I get so much anxiety and leave the phone call feeling like the conversation would have been just as easily communicated over two messages. Despite this, I worked at a major hospital switchboard for 3 years... taking emergency calls, chopper calls, mental health calls; ~800 total calls on average during a shift. I think it worked because I could approach calls logically/analytically as a problem to be solved, and had an extremely thorough understanding of the system and largely their intentions. Bat phone still scared the heck out of me though. 🤣

Definitely a good chapter to include in your book. I see so many of my problems in your descriptions. Having to initiate a call, especially to someone I don't know, creates a great deal of anxiety so I tend to put it off. I need to call my medication insurance provider to find out why one of my meds is not coming through but each time I start to even think about making the call, the anxiety builds and has caused me to put it off for months. I don't have too much difficulty receiving a call, but if it is a friend who just wants to chat, the conversation doesn't go well with me. I tend to run out of things to say and the conversation just goes quiet.

After reading your first book, I'm firmly convinced (and my wife is also) that I may be on the spectrum like yourself. The fact that you're writing a second book is awesome - I'm very much looking forward to it! In terms of phone calls, I'll admit that I'm most comfortable on zoom calls with all parties having their cameras on - but even then I tend to focus on my camera and not those of the other callers. If someone calls me directly, and I don't recognize the number, I automatically default to letting it go to voicemail. I frankly don't want to talk to someone whom I don't immediately recognize, and if they don't leave an actual voicemail, they won't get a call back. My wife and I met each other via email and to this day, we spend as much time texting each other as talking to each other (and 27 years later it still works for us, so don't think that's a recipe for divorce! LOL) But if I do know the caller, I'm okay talking to them on the phone - but it makes me more tense than if I can see them on a video call. So bottom line - I get it, I agree with all you're saying on this video, and can't wait for your next book. And also your Dave's Garage videos - I'm still waiting for an in-depth series on assembly programming so I can really learn how it all works! Thanks for all you do!

Although I have not been diagnosed (I am a retired firmware engineer), I feel what you are saying. I have had a life long dislike for the telephone. I do however like and use skype; perhaps for all the reasons you listed.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. It has helped me to become more self aware. I feel like I need to write notes before important phone calls and take them during. For me email seems more efficient and comfortable. I’m more comfortable receiving calls from people I know well because they are used to the way I am. It often even becomes a feature of our friendship. I also think I tend to make mental models of people I am close to. That helps me to anticipate avenues of conversation.

Here's one for ya...I was 4 years old and since Dad worked the late shift Mom let me wait up until he came home. I would watch the late show on TV after she went to bed. About this time (1956?) Arthur Godfrey had some kind of gag about turning the phrase "How are you?" into "Hawaii?" . My young self picked up the phone, dialed O and repeated "Hawaii" several times. A couple weeks later Dad got a massive phone bill and calmly walked over to the phone and jerked the cord out of the wall.. I never saw a phone again until I was in my late teens. I don't know if it was the lack of the device or if I just can not communicate verbally, but even in my 70's I still have anxiety about using a phone.

I know you're proud of your various career successes, but I feel your greatest contribution will be this subject and your book. Wish I had known some of this information many decades ago. And here all this time I thought I was just an awkward techie nerd. But I'm doing much better now. It's been two years since my daughters said to me: "Dad! You're having a Sheldon moment." My que to stop explaining how things work. Even if I was asked to explain something. Thank you. Your book has not only helped me, but I gave a copy to the grandparents (AKA: daycare providers) of a very active grandchild with interesting personality attributes. They loved the book too. P.S. Looking foward to your next book.

Now I know why I have problems talking to my Son. Thanks for the insight. P.S. he's on the Spectrum. My wife thinks I am to.

I too have always found the non-visual aspect of phone calls frustrating. Give me text, email, or even face to face (IRL or video call) communication any day. You at least have time to craft an appropriate response with text or email.

As being officially "a little bit of autistic" too, I agree with Dave: calling someone for anything, no matter how trivial, is an absolute nightmare. And guess what, that was the number one communication at work... :-( They simply didn't understand that even making trivial phone calls is an absolute nightmare for me. And hence I postpone that as long as I can.... and get more and more anxious about it the longer it got postponed. + I'm very bad at the impromptu reactions people expect you to make, especially over phone calls. Hence why I love email over everything else too. Also (in my case at least): it is not so much that body language queues or facial expressions are not seen or not understood (though, probably less than 'normal'), but more about not knowing the appropriate way to react to them and/or expressing the thoughts and feelings I have in a concise manner.