Phone Phobic

I detest talking on the phone.  Even when my parents call me, I look at the caller ID and wonder if it's important enough to answer.  I have trouble carrying on a conversation on the phone.  I get distracted very easily and find myself not even paying attention to what the other person is saying.  It's not intentional, I just can't make myself concentrate.

I didn't realize just how little I talked on the phone until last night, though.

Our phone bill was about $30 higher than normal this month, so I decided to investigate.  Turns out, when Mr. Bill was out of town a few weeks ago, he was using his phone for the internet and he never does that, so he doesn't have a data package.  A few days of checking facebook via his phone and he racked up $30 in data fees.  It's no big deal.... he doesn't go out of town often, never really, and he doesn't like using his phone for the internet.  It's basically a one time thing, so the $30 is fine with me.

As I was clicking the tabs to find that information, I came across the breakdown of minutes used.  Last month I used a grand total of 55 minutes!  Wow.  That's less than 2 minutes a day.

Then I got curious and wanted to see if that was normal, so I went through the past year.  55 minutes is actually higher than usual.  Most months were closer to 30 minutes.  One month was 16 minutes.  One month I turned into a blabber mouth and racked up 71 minutes.

I very rarely make a phone call.  I guarantee the majority of those minutes were calls made to me, and probably mostly by my parents.  =)  My Dad is really good at calling to check up on us once a week.  I get really anxious when I have to make a call.  I'll tell myself, "Self, you really need to call your parents."  And I'll sit there and stare at the phone for half an hour until I have to do something else instead.  We're talking about just chit-chatting with my parents, for Pete's sake!  If I have to call someone about something important... I'm usually pacing the floor with my heart pounding.  That's what I mean by phone phobic.  I never just sit back in the evenings and gab on the phone with my friends... it's probably a huge factor in why I really don't have anyone to sit back and gab with on the phone.  That 55 minutes of phone usage last month included a week where Mr. Bill was out of town.... we barely talked to each other while he was gone (granted, with our schedules, we barely talk to each other on a daily basis anyway).  

I guess it makes sense when you consider how socially awkward I am.  Outside of work, I don't talk to many people... my husband, my sister, my parents.  And at work, there are only a few that I can sit around and just talk to.  I can't make small talk.  I just can't.  I'm sure a lot of people at work think I'm a total fruitcake, and they're right, but I  just don't know how to have a conversation with someone I don't know really well.  And if they don't initiate a conversation, it's just not happening.  Sometimes I think I need to work on that.  But that's just who I am, and usually - when I'm not feeling lonely (it's not that often, really) - I'm perfectly fine with it.