A while back, I developed a fear of talking on telephones. I carried the fear for about ten years, and I learned a lot of ways around having to make telephone calls. Now, I am pleased to say I have mostly conquered that fear. Since I have encountered a lot of people with a similar fear (or full-blown phobia), I’d like to pass along some of the ways in which I learned to comfortably converse on the telephone with friends and strangers.
- Don’t agonize over why you are afraid of making or answering telephone calls. Often, your reasons won’t be rational, but even if they are, the benefits of being free of fear outweigh the costs.
- When making phone calls:
- If you need to make an appointment, order food, or receive technical assistance, write down all of the information that you might need and that your nervousness might cause you to forget. This could include your telephone number(s), account numbers, social security number, or what you want on your pizza.
- If you are really scared, write a short script for yourself to start out. For example, when the person on the other end of the line picks up and greets you, you could say, “Hello, my name is John Smith, and I’d like to make an appointment with Dr. Brown for a checkup.” After that, you’ll probably have to answer a few questions, but it should be easy because the information is right in front of you, since you wrote it down beforehand.
- If you forgot to write down an important piece of information, don’t panic. Ask the person on the other end of the line to wait a moment, please, and retrieve the information. Remember, the other person probably does this all day long, and not everyone is perfectly prepared.
- Be polite. A receptionist, cashier, or tech support person might talk to a hundred people in a day; he or she is only going to remember you if you do something really out-of-the-ordinary. If he does remember you, it’s better to be remembered in a good light. Either way, there is less of a reason to feel embarrassed after you hang up the phone if you are polite, even if you made mistakes.
- When calling friends or family members with whom you haven’t spoken in a long while, remember: they are more pleased to hear from you than they are upset that you haven’t contacted them before now. If they are your friends, your calls are NOT a burden. If they are busy, they will tell you so; ask them when is a good time to call back, and DO CALL BACK. Talking with friends and family you love should be easy; sometimes the hardest part is the first thirty seconds. But thirty seconds is nothing compared to reinvigorating a friendship.
- When receiving phone calls:
- It is okay to ignore a ringing telephone if you are busy. If it is important, the other party will leave a message. “Unknown callers” are usually telemarketers; unrecognizable numbers are easy to look up online (for instance at whitepages.com or whocalled.us).
- If a friend is calling and you haven’t talked with him or her in a long time, answer the phone or call back! She may have just overcome her own guilt about not talking to you before now.
- When you need to get off the phone, say so. Some people don’t know how to wrap up a conversation; the easiest way is to say, “Hey, I gotta go, but we can talk again soon.” You don’t have to give a reason. If the other party says he has to get off the phone, let him go without belaboring the conversation.
- Practice.
My own fear developed when I was in high school–strange for a teenage girl–because, for reasons I couldn’t comprehend (and still can’t), I would get in trouble when people called me. But the fear continued when I went to college and afterward, when I moved out and got my first job. At that point, it became irrational–a phobia. I was afraid of making medical appointments, inquiring about apartments, setting up utilities, and satisfying my craving for pizza. Many times, I found ways around making phone calls: I would visit a doctor’s office in person, for instance, or order pizza online. I screened all my calls and rarely made callbacks.
There were, however, some chores that necessitated making phone calls, like getting electric service connected or inquiring about a billing mistake. It was during those times I started making lists of information and scripts to follow, and it really helped. Living with other people as an adult also helped, in particular living with people who had similar fears. On one hand, I realized that I couldn’t rely on them to help me when things needed to be done. On the other hand, it was easy for me to call on behalf of another person, rather than calling for myself. Again, that last part was irrational and may not hold true for everyone.
Finally, it was, has been, and will always be necessary to communicate with colleagues and clients at a job. I didn’t want to risk showing weakness, but more than that, I wanted the weakness to go away.
With the above methods and lots of practice, it did.