The Nest

Tuesday, February 27, 2007 2:40 PM

Scaredy Cat...

By Jeanine

I will resist the temptation to blog about my new apartment again this week, even though I am totally in love with it. Instead, I will blog about this on-going debate I have been having with one of my friends. Over the weekend we got into a pretty big fight because he complains that not only do I never call him, but I don’t even call him back when he calls me. And the sad fact is, he's not exaggerating.

But the truth is that I hate talking on the phone, I may even have a phobia of it if there is such a thing. I don’t know why, but whenever I have to call someone and even sometimes when I have to answer the phone for someone who is not my mom or dad, my heart starts racing, my head starts pounding and the moment I start talking my voice is all shaky. It has very little to do with the person on the other end because I get all nervous and clammy regardless of who I am talking to without fail. At one point I tried to overcome this “fear” by writing down exactly what I would say (1) if the other person answered or (2) if I got their voicemail, but that wasn’t working out all that well, so I stopped. My new way to avoid this chemical meltdown is to avoid talking on the phone at all.

But my friend was really upset this weekend and accused me of not doing my fair share to maintain the relationship because he had to call me all the time and I never called him back which made it seem like I didn’t want to talk to him. And that isn’t the case at all. In my defense, I brought up the fact that I send him emails quite regularly, but not surprisingly, this isn’t enough. So now, I don’t know what to do. I understand that I will have to step out of my comfort zone a bit in order to keep up this and my other friendships, but I don’t know how to make my friends realize that it’s not that I don’t want to talk to them but that having to talk on the phone physically affects me. I feel like one of those strange people on the talk shows that just starts crying and screaming at the sight of a cat because they are so afraid. People watching it don’t necessarily understand it, but to that person the feeling is so real – and frightening. Anyways, do any of you have any strange fears? Have you been forced to face them yet? And if you have any suggestions for my phobia, any suggestions are greatly appreciated.