And you'll do almost anything to avoid having to make a phone call.
You want to answer it, but only in the way you want to do the dishes. Which is to say, you don't really want to, but you know you should.
So you struggle between hitting "reject call" or letting it go to voicemail.
Which is the most dangerous game of all! If you don't hit "Decline" right away, the caller will know you ignored them...
And if you let it go to voicemail, you have to come up with a good excuse as to why you didn't pick up the phone.
Plus, your anxiety builds with each ring, so you start to think of scenarios in which it would have been impossible for you to answer the call.
But all of those ideas are terrible because, well, they're lies, and all you want to do is have the caller surrender and hang up.
Which they don't, because they're jerks, so now the phone has been ringing for an impossibly long time — longer than a normal phone would ring, certainly — and it is really stressing you out.
So you contemplate picking up, while thinking of excuses as to how you can answer and make it a short phone convo.
But these are, again, terrible ideas, so you stare at your phone, wondering what this person could possibly be calling about.
Then suddenly you remember that they'll probably want you to call back, which is another jerk move, so you scramble to think of which scenario is better: picking up now or calling back later.
Both of which are dreadful, but you decide you'd rather call back later because that means you don't have to talk on the phone right now, which is really wonderful. And maybe you'll be ready to talk later. I mean, who knows?
You know. You know damn well you don't want to call them back. So you just wait a few minutes and text them something like, "Hey. Sorry, I was busy. What's up?"
Which naturally leads to a non-talking conversation over text messages. Just how you like it.
Until someone else calls, launching you into yet another anxiety-filled situation with soon-filled lies.
All of which is avoidable, if you'd just pick up the phone and talk. But that's not something you're interested in doing. And you know what? That's OK. People need to learn to stop calling you. Unless, of course, it's an emergency.
Even then, though, they should still probably send a text. Otherwise, how would you know it's an emergency?
