overcome my aversion to phones

I’ve made so many phone calls to find an apartment in New York, without thinking twice about it, that I’m gonna mark this done. Yay! Down from 43 to 38 things in like 5 minutes lol.

in my search for somewhere to live in new york city when I move there in just over a week to study, I rang up 4 people advertising for roommates in new york.

I had to do it at 7am to get the time zones decent, and I was still in that sleepy haze. I got two machines, and the other two had already found someone for the room. I had much more success from the ones I emailed, but I don’t regret it because normally I would resort to email as my comfortable backup option, and this time I thought it was too important to only contact the ones who left an email address, so I forced myself to do it, and even though it didn’t work out, at least I won’t regret not calling them in the mistaken belief that if only I’d called them I’d have somewhere by now.

afterwards I was in a kind of deflated, shaky mood, but I felt better for having done it in the end.

So all in all, I’m proud of myself say.

When I was a kid I hated ringing people up. I used to get my mum to ring my friends up to invite them over, which got a little weird once I reached about 10-11, and I started doing it myself.

Now that I am all grown up I have no issues with talking on the phone to friends, sometimes for hours (I don’t like the saw neck though). I have no problem answering my own phone, or the phone at home.

But there are two things that I still have issues with:
1. phoning up unfamiliar people at work to ask them to do something for me, and having to answer questions about what I want when I haven’t been given that background from my boss. I avoid it as much as possible by sending emails instead.
2. Ordering takeaway – I do it without thinking if I am on my own, but if i’m with other people I always point to someone else when they ask who should call. I come up with an excuse or look away. It’s like an association thing, I can ring up a business to ask their opening hours or whatever, but ordering takeaway heightens my anxiety for no good reason. Weird!