#Phone-a-phobia

Up until last year I suffered from a serious case of #Phone-a-phobia. I hated using my cell phone for anything other than sending/receiving emails and texts. When people would call my cell, I would just text them back with a response like, "hey, whats up?" or "what are you up to?"

Thankfully I overcame this phobia, but I still see many people who remind me of how I once was:


A shy and insecure girl who was scared of picking up the phone because of one of the following reasons:

• fear of the occurrence of awkward silence(s)
• apprehensive of stumbling over words (especially when a crush was calling!)
• apprehensive of sounding stupid or being repetitive

There are clearly more reasons for why people suffer from #Phone-a-phobia, but those few are definitely the frontrunners. What I've noticed more and more, having now overcome my fear, is the different ways people act when they receive a phone-call. Bare with me here...

First, you have the friend who doesn't seem to think that a 25 minute phone-call from a family member would bother every other person in the room. This person decides not to move out of the room to take the call elsewhere, but instead he or she sits there for about a half hour chatting it up (as if everyone needed or wanted to know all the intricate details of his or her life!)

Second, there's the friend who quickly gets up and chooses the quickest exit out of the room. This may make some people suspicious about what the phone-call is about. If it happens all the time, I'd suggest watching this person a little more closely.... you can never be too trusting these days. I may be a little bias when saying that last sentence because of the recent episodes of Revenge and other drama-genre shows I've been watching, but still, be careful!

Finally, you have the friend who is "the pacer." I, undoubtedly, fall under this category. When this person either receives or makes a phone-call it doesn't take more than 5 seconds before they start pacing back and forth across a set-point. For me, I usually pace back and forth in the kitchen, although I've witnessed people in the airport who pace through rows of chairs. To be honest, that type of pacing would just end up making me dizzy, but I give them credit for somehow making it work for them.

No matter what category you fall in, you should be proud that you are able to talk on the phone at all! There are a ton of people in your life that may suffer from this condition and my recommendation to you is to locate them and start calling them repeatedly. Make them feel uncomfortable and after a while the fear will fade away. That's what happened to me and now I have to charge my phone up to 2-3 times a day! After-all the saying, practice makes perfect, applies to everything!

Stay saucy & embrace & face your fears,

Cara