I am not a phone person. I think you all know what I mean. There are some people that love to talk on the phone. They can visit for hours at a time, always thinking of something new to talk about, and they are usually good at multitasking while they do it. My sister comes to mind (only one of them). She calls me once or twice a week, usually, and its a good thing, because I don’t call anyone, ever. She updates me on the funny things her kids are up to (her kids are awesome), and asks me questions about my life, and talks about her school work and their dairy farm and the neighbors and the people she knows from her job at the nursing home. You will notice that her life is considerably busy – she has 2 kids that live with them full-time and 2 other kids that come and go, along with a dairy farm that she and her husband run, a part-time job at the nursing home, and she’s currently taking 18 credits at a local college to get her degree in social work. The woman is seriously motivated. Anyway, even with all of this going on, she calls me. And she calls my mom and my other sisters. She is a phone person (and it’s a good thing, because I get most of my family news through her).

I, on the other hand, am not a phone person. It’s not that I’m too busy – we don’t have any kids (yet), I only have my one full-time job, and it’s a strictly 8-4:30 gig M-F. I was volunteering at the library twice a week, but I quit doing that when all the bending over was making me dizzy (sometime around 15 weeks pregnant or so). I just don’t enjoy talking on the phone much, I guess. I view it as a very utilitarian thing. I call someone if I need to talk to them about something – where are you, what time are we meeting, how do I make this, etc. Or if I need to share news, and usually I try to call if it’s a special occasion (birthdays, for example), but I’m not great at that either.

It’s not that I don’t like talking to the people I know. I love visiting with people in person, and I’m great at email…I just don’t like the phone. I’m not very good at making small talk. I ask a lot of stupid questions like “So, what’s up?” over and over if I get the sense that the other person expects me to stay on the phone, or if they call me and the conversation lags. I’m just not good with down-time on the phone. Usually I call, ask the obligatory question about how things are going, and get right to my reason for calling. And then I hang up.

Are you a phone person? Do you know someone who is different than you are, and does it bother you, or fascinate you (or some of each)?