Re: So, just how bad is your phone phobia?

[mint]

I am utterly delighted to be in such good company; I mean both Norman and Loiseau are fellow sufferers[:D]

So, I thought I'd try and find out if there are others of us "out there"?

Well, my phobia is so bad that it took an illness of OH's and his subsequent anxiety that I carried a mobile that I eventually succumbed to buying a second-hand portable on leboncoin.

Then, it took several complaints from him before I took to actually switching the damn thing on.

Then, I refused to look up messages in case there are any that I have to respond to.

As for the landline, to date, I have not got it on answerphone.  After all, someone MIGHT ring me and ask me to call them back?[:-))]

Admittedly, when I sold our house in the Charente Maritime recently, I had to call many people and answer many phone calls; so much so that I was beginning to harbour some slender hope that I might have overcome my phobia.

But..............not a bit of it; I am as stupid and unreasonable about the phone thing as I have ever been.

When I first left home at the tender age of nearly 18, I refused to ring home and insisted that all communication be by letter.

When I first met my now husband, I refused to ring him too and insisted that he called at my house or dropped me a note.

My neighbour rings me now and again and I go out into the garden and tell her to come and speak to me there instead.

The lady who sells me eggs every week sometimes rings and asks what time she might call and I tell her not to worry about ringing but just to drop the eggs off and leave them in the garage if I were out.

And so it goes.............I swear that if someone rings and tells me that I have won the euro lottery (not likely as I won't buy a ticket in case someone rings and tells me I have won) I will miss the call because I often do not answer the phone at all if I am in the house on my own.

So now, tell me YOUR experience if you also have phone phobia.  It would be good to compare notes and see how I measure up or down from you?

[idun]

I was going to say that I hadn't got a phobia, but perhaps I have.  My  old mobile is rarely used. The idea of any of the 'new' mobile phones revolts me. I do not understand why anyone wants to be in communication with so many people 'all the time'. I couldn't do it, wouldn't want it.

Landlines are something different though, I like my landline. I love it being cheap as chips these days too. I use the phone at home quite a bit.

[mint]

[quote user="idun"]I was going to say that I hadn't got a phobia, but perhaps I have.  My  old mobile is rarely used. The idea of any of the 'new' mobile phones revolts me. I do not understand why anyone wants to be in communication with so many people 'all the time'. I couldn't do it, wouldn't want it.

[/quote]

I so agree about these wretched things.

You have only to be at a concert, a meeting, indeed a French class (!) when somebody's phone would go off and your attention and enjoyment  destroyed to realise how ubiquitous and annoying these things are.

On her last visit, my sister went on so much about her bloody "smartphone" and taking photos of everything that I did snap when I was trying to find her a hotel in Bordeaux on-line.  I was fraught with tension with all the busy thumbwork and commentary on what she found in it.  In the end, I said do you mind taking that damn thing somewhere else if you insist on using it?

It was indefensible on my part; she was my guest, she clearly had no idea that I'd get so heated up about a mere phone and I wish I hadn't been so rude.

These things do bring out the worst in me and I'd go so far as to say that only stupid people used smartphones but I guess I'd better restrain myself before I get serious abuse [:P]

[Patf]

At first I thought you meant speaking french on the phone, which I still have a phobia about, but it's getting better.

I was once speaking to a woman from Francetelecom on the phone, struggling with french to explain our problem, and suddenly a mouse ran across the floor so I screamed very loud. The poor woman was deafened [:D] I apologised to her and said what had happened.

But these mobile gadgets are mostly unnecessary, turning people into zombies.

[Théière]

[quote user="Patf"]

But these mobile gadgets are mostly unnecessary, turning people into zombies.

[/quote]

Ah a conspiracy theorist and there was me blaming Xfactor, Towie, made in Chelsea, the Kardashians, Britain had talent etc.

I would be lost without my mobile, really I would, it's got satnav on it [:)]

[Gardian]

At first it was a problem over here - using French face-to-face is one thing, but so much harder over the phone.

Now we're both OK with it, except when you get a real local accent bod.  The lady at the garage is hell - she speaks very quickly with a strong local accent which makes her unintelligible.  Similarly the ramoneur, but as long as I get the day and time OK, that's all I need. 

[idun]

I don't care how quickly or accented your garage lady speaks, what I had left me feeling embarrassed and found it the hardest phone call EVER this afternoon. The person speaking french stuttered badly. Truly it was awful, really awful and I felt somewhat ashamed that I couldn't understand.

I have only ever encountered a couple of french people with very mild stutters before and I coped with them, but today was really hard. Well done to the stutterer for answering the phone though, good for them, if people sans problemes, just 'phobias' avoid the phone![Www][;-)]

[Clark Kent II]

How bad is my phone phobia? Pretty bad.

I will not use the phone if there is any other reasonable means of communication, email is a godsend!

My family, when I was a child, had no phone - it was either going to a neighbour or to the nearest red box about half a mile away, clutching two pennies in both cases. The telephone habit was never established. We had our first phone installed in our third marital home - when I was in my 30s.

! agree with what everyone says about mobile phones. They have introduced a new level of rudeness into society and have caused the rules of social intercourse to be rewritten

[mint]

CK, you wouldn't be interested in one of these then?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

Sorry, first time I've done this linking stuff and I see it's not active.

Anyway, it's about a watch type gadget that you use in conjunction with your iphone.

I enjoyed your last sentence.  Years ago, I went to Cardiff with a friend (at her insistence) to spend a day having lunch, shopping, etc (can't  understand now why I did mindless things like that when I was younger [+o(]) and all the way through lunch, she was texting her daughter, getting return texts, and it was back and forth like that for a good hour or so.

You talk about rudeness and that was a principal reason why I didn't stay friends very long after that with the woman.  I mean I might just as well not have been there and it felt like having someone talk over you to the next person from you all through a meal!

I fail to understand why people need to keep in touch with their children, their spouses, whoever else, constantly.  What could be so important that it can't wait until you are in the privacy of your own home? 

[Chancer]

On 3 occasions I have had first dates with women and have left them in the restaurant to finish their meal alone and find their own way home after I had asked them politely and repeatedly to stop using their mobile phone, I left money on the table for the meal but was not prepared to continue to support the rudeness.

I have to say its a very general thing for both sexes, my 68 year old UK neighbour who has been my friend for 30 years is now terrible but I have to put up with it in his case, we go back too long.

When I see an attractive woman and pay her a little discreet attention 99% of the time my interest will be 100% lost within a couple of minutes becuase she will either light up a cigarette or become engrossed in her mobile phone to the total exclusion of all those around her. 

When I see fairly large groups of youngsters occupying a few tables at a bar around here (nobody goes out alone or as a pair, you have to take your company with you or become pestered by all the deadbeats) something that used to really please me to see, the politeness, the socialisation, cant really find the right words but it was and still is an altogether different comportment to a group of youngsters in the UK, well now when I see them they all ingnore each other and are engrossed in their Smartphones, the only interaction between them is when they show whats on their screen t one of the others or when they go outside for a clop, so so sad.

Many of us fear that the younger generation are going to lose the art of face to face conversation, I have to say that I believe that 95% of the people around here never ever had it, the vast majority of people cannot listen at all and will just shout over other people to try to dominate the conversation which is behaviour that they have learnt in the family home, not the schools, try and imagine the behaviour of the worst of the 70's communist shop stewards (or any current French syndicaliste) then imagine that everyone in the group will be doing the same and you might get some idea, now that they are all engrossed in their Smartphones the bars are a lot calmer but outside where they are smoking then its the saame old atmosphere, hardly conducive to tempting people to patronise the bar or restaurant.

[blondie]

I love my mobile but then I use it 95% of the time for texting. I skype for friends and family and the house phone is definately set to answer machine otherwise I would spend a lot of wasted time saying bonjour to a blank line and life is too short for that.

[mint]

Good for you, blondie!

That's what mobiles are for after all.

Some of us are just old and set in our ways but that's OK because some of us do NOT really want to change![:D]

Chance, I would just love to have seen the faces of those women you left at the resto [:D][:D][:D]

Do you think they might be sending you a message? ( More grins and HUGE smiles)

Seriously, I understand why you walked out..............don't you feel insignificant when people just ignore you and go into their own private space when they are supposed to be interacting  with you?[:(]

[NormanH]

I haven't gone as far as Chancer (in any case I am past having dates) but I have rather pointedly apologised for interrupting the text conversation by wishing to say something when having a meal with someone.

[Judith]

I'm a late "arrival" with mobile phones, and though I've had one for perhaps 15-20 years, (first one bought when no house phone in rented place) until I bought a smartphone recently it was never switched on, and I used it when travelling, as an emergency phone and to ring to tell OH that I had arrived safely after a longish journey.  C'est tout.

Until I went to Oz and NZ this summer - and trying to make contact with my travel agency to confirm bookings etc became a nightmare without a mobile.  Hotel receptions would phone through for me, but I was often having to  phone out of hours as I had so many trips getting back late ... and not all places had wifi, so emails on the ipad wouldn't work either!

So I bought a smartphone which I now use for emergencies, emails when out of wifi range, some internet serching when out of wifi range, but very little phoning, except in an emergency.  I cannot fathom how to text - and it sits by the computer on the desk, unless I take it with me when out .. so I miss calls (which all seem to have been junk ones anyway!!).

As for using landlines, likewise, we get more junk calls than real, as most people who know me know they get replies from emails when we may not hear the phone (if outside for example.)

So do I have a phobia - well almost.  I don't like mobile phones but will use them, I'm not too happy having to phone in French unless it's appointments for doctors etc, and even when I had to use the phone for work I was always a little unhappy ... it's better now you don't have to think about cost ... but it is usually my last port of call rather than my first.