Hung Up

I don't like talking on the phone with people I have never met, which is ironic considering the fact that I have had two jobs in my time which were spent doing just that.  The first was for an NHS Trust providing first line technical support for 13,000 staff members, and the second was for a commercial bank in the UK providing customer service to credit card customers for a bank with millions of customers.  In both cases the thing I hated most about talking on the phone to people I had never met was the unknown element of conversation, or more specifically, small talk.  I've never been great at this, I find it quite difficult.  Thankfully in both situations there was a meaningful task that needed to be completed which at the very least gave some scope for what to talk about beyond that which was scripted.

When it comes to talking on the phone with people I actually know and have a working relationship with, that is a lot easier.  Nevertheless for me personally if you look at my contract phone bill you'll see that 99.9% of it is texting, with the remainder made up almost entirely by data.  It is incredibly rare that I actually make and receive phone calls - even when I do, most of them are related to business or financial matters, not for social purposes.

There is an anxiety that I feel when I have to make a phone call, to the extent where I avoid it at all costs, if I can do it online or through some text based communication then I'll choose that option.  This anxiety however is not limited to communicating with people at a distance as above, it also extends to in-person interaction.  I am fine with people I know and I feel comfortable with, but when it comes to complete strangers it pains me to make small talk.  I resort to the veritably British staple of talking about the weather.

The biggest obstacle to overcome in these situations for me personally is not the act itself but just simply knowing what to talk about.  I have a lot of varied interests that span a wide array of topics, as can be demonstrated by the posts on this blog and how they vary greatly in their focus.  However most of my interests I would not consider to be things that most people are interested in.  Most people when I think of them are interested in things which I have little or no interest in.  Forgive me but I have to resort to stereotypes here to make my point: straight men are almost always obsessed with football to the point where I think one of the reasons it is so popular in the first place is because straight men need something to be able to talk about, that and sexist conversation which I have no interest in whatsoever.  Gay men usually end up talking about sex, or about whatever is the latest obsession within the gay community, usually a TV show, an artist, or something along those lines, which is great if it's something you're interested in, but not so great if you have no interest in it at all.  Women are perhaps the easiest I have found to talk to as their topics of conversation seem to be much wider ranging, they're much more willing to go with the flow, it's probably not surprising then to know that most of my friends have been women.

There is an argument to be made about the physiological differences between male and female brains and the activity therein - there have actually been studies that show that gay men and straight women share a brain structure whilst gay women and straight men share a different structure.  That could be posited as an explanation as to why I find it easier to engage with women, that perhaps there is an underlying reason for the way I think and what I think about, matching up with that of the women I get along with most.  That doesn't explain why it is difficult to have a conversation with other gay men at times.

The other argument is that there is a social construct at play much more than a physiological construct.  This argument posits that those topics of conversation that are dominant are actually based on the concept of conformity and the expectation that this is what you're supposed to talk about.  I've never been fond of that idea of presumption and expectation of behaviour based on very little information about the other person - and yes I realise above I used stereotypes to prove a point, but the reason for that is because I can't discuss this in greater detail without being specific about people and I don't like to talk about individuals out of respect for their privacy.

I have little or no expectation of people when I first meet them, I prefer to let the experience speak for itself.  First impressions unless incredibly bad, or incredibly good, otherwise don't tend to have any lasting impact on how I view a person.  I know that for me personally the first impression I give is almost always the wrong first impression, by simple consequence of the fact I am a very guarded person and shy when I first meet people and I only shift that behaviour and lower that guard if I feel comfortable with those people otherwise it becomes reinforced.

You would think this, being something fundamental and basic for us to understand, would be something we are taught from a young age, either in school or by our parents, but that isn't the case.  This type of education isn't given in schools - at least none that I know of, and as for life in general and the way we are raised, I do not see that as being any different.  The prevalence of these anxieties in society, and the fact that often our family, our friends, and even the people we work with all share the same hang ups tells me that this is a natural part of life.  What I find amusing about this is the fact that humans are often described as social animals who need social interaction to survive - if that is the case, why are we so averse to it?