Phone Hostility
PHONE HOSTILITY....Lots of hating on telephones today:
Yglesias: "I couldn't be more thrilled with the phone's decline. I used to be painfully shy as a person, and while I've largely gotten over that IRL I still find it incredibly stressful to talk to people on the phone."I don't know why this surprises me, but it does. I am, in fact, still fairly introverted, and not much of a conversationalist in any setting. And I certainly use email way, way more than the telephone. But hate the phone? No.Atrios: "I think I enjoyed chatting with girls when I was 13 or so, but since then I've pretty much hated the phone."
Alan Jacobs: "This is a loathing I share, and have for a long time."
McMegan: "Weird fact: every single (successful) blogger I know hates talking on the phone. I'm gregarious face to face, and I'm an inveterate user of various kinds of textual messaging, but I would rather scrub my floors with a toothbrush than get on the phone."
Except for telemarketers, of course, who can burn in hell. The rest of you, no problem.
POSTSCRIPT: Though I guess it's worth noting the difference between making and receiving calls. I don't like to make calls all that much, mainly because I'm afraid I'll be annoying somebody. But receiving calls is pretty stress free.
I wonder how common phone hatred is? Is it the kind of thing that's actually fairly widespread but you never find out about it until you bring up the subject?