274. Telephone dread

This is something that maybe only happens to me, but I do of course project this onto the rest of mankind and assume that it happens to everyone. Making phone calls fills me with dread. I am not talking about calling a friend, or a family member. That is fine and I happily do it. I am talking about using it to book a restaurant, or a dental visit or to order something over the phone. I dread simple phone calls to people I do not know. When I make them, of course, they go quite smoothly most of the time, nothing untoward happens, they often even produce the desired outcome and they are always fairly predictable. But my dread persists, not enough to prevent me from calling, just enough to make it feel awkward. I grew up at a time when bookings, reservations, appointments and purchases were made face to face or over the phone, so I cannot imagine what I would feel like if I had grown already at a time when all that is done online. Does this make me a kind of extremely overaged millennial?

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