voice mail is for people who are not me

[jlh]

I've gotten to the point where I pretty much hate the telephone. I only talk to a few people on it regularly, all people who are not local. I used to talk on the phone all the time. And the oddest thing is, most of the people I talk to on the phone are male friends! (This is particularly true now that Mother has gone deaf, so we communicate via email.)

I also hate voice mail—hate it to the extent that I stopped checking it at some point and so Cingular or AT&T or whatever just turned the thing off, and I can't say as I care that much. If you want me, send me a text or an email, please. Anyway, apparently I'm not the only one hating on voice mail—there's a whole piece about it at the NYTimes, which I saw via Jezebel, and the blogger there hates voice mail, too.

At least my anxieties are trendy. I have to agree with that one guy who talks about how there are so many ways to reach anyone—I'd rather just cut off one of them.

Comments

[mistress-mab.livejournal.com]

It rings 5 or 6 times and then says something like, "The AT&T Customer you are trying to reach is unavailable."

My friends are used to it by now and my ringer is off the majority of the day because I'm at work (cell phones are obviously a big no-no in a library), so it doesn't bother me. It used to drive my mom nuts, though, before she discovered the joys of email.

I'm a classic introvert and talking on the phone is really awkward for me.