River: Avoiding the phone

I had a fascinating conversation with a couple of coworkers this morning about avoiding the phone. R. described herself as "phone phobic", and it brought home the fact that it isn't a phobia at all. There's no fear involved; one simply... doesn't make calls. As R. said later, one simply doesn't think about it except at times when it's impossible to make the call. Or, as K. said, it's something you can do any time, so there's never a pressing reason to do it now, and there's always something else more urgent/desirable/easy/fun to do.

So what is it?

Maybe it's just that it reminds me of or requires me to think about things that make me uncomfortable. That seems to be generally true of things I avoid. It's not just the phone: taxes, anything involving paperwork or finances -- my finances are a trainwreck and I really don't want to think about that. But phone calls? I can see being uncomfortable with calling my broker on some financial matter, but Callie?! What's making me uncomfortable about that?

Maybe it's the whole "I don't want to interrupt anything; I'm not important; why would anybody want to talk to me?" thing. Low self-esteem. That's this month's whipping boy.

Or maybe there is some fear down there -- I already know that I'm not in touch with my feelings. But fear of what? It doesn't made sense.

Of course, if it made sense, it wouldn't be an irrational behavior, would it?

Done yesterday (20091118 We)

( raw notes )

It was a good day; basically in a good mood. I'm not going to try to characterize it beyond that -- I may not be completely alexithymic, but I come close.

I've already posted about the day's "aha" insight into my limited definition of "social life".

I had a good, if geographically-limited, walk. That's because I was on the phone with cflute, so I kept to the top of the hill behind work, where there's a good signal and very little traffic noise. Both of us were pretty cheerful, so that's good too.

Placed a book order with Powells, almost equally divided between self-help and fiction.

The day's link sausage includes An Argument for Friendship (in fiction; from haikujaguar), more profound whimsy from Tom Digby, and speaking of whimsy, Photos from Robolamp (from from gizmodo)