The Dreaded Phone

I remember a day in the dark ages of my childhood where I loved to talk on the phone.  I had a special phone (looked vintage but was modern) and would talk for hours – until late into the night to lots of friends.  I even had one friend who I would regularly “watch” horror movies with while on the phone – he at his house tuned in to Friday the 13^th part 18 while I was at my house watching the same thing …the extra-long phone cord stretched through the kitchen and into the living room.

But I don’t call people anymore….almost never.  Now this is partially because of the wonderful invention of text messaging.  It is so much less threatening for me to send a text and get a response.  I can send texts while I am in a meeting at work, while at the movies or late at night.  As a lover of the written word this was the perfect discovery for me…I wish I had invented it.

But another more vulnerable reason why I don’t call people is due to years of built up rejection in my past that culminated in one very bizarre incident that happened almost seven years ago.  It is so funny how if you dig through the rubble of your past you can figure out the trigger that made you the way you are today.

The incident is so strange that to write about it seems silly.  You will wonder why I ever allowed this to happen in the first place.  How could I not have seen that this is crazy at the time?  That is another post…

I had a very good friend, probably one of the few best friends I have ever had.  I thought we were very close, but in hindsight I realized that the relationship was mostly about me listening to her and being there for her (another hallmark of my relationships I can get into at another time).  My friend moved away and we spent a lot of time on the phone. 

One weekend, something happened in my friend’s life and she was very upset.  I called her and left a message letting her know I was available if she wanted to talk.  She never called me back.  Two other times during the weekend I left her a message – just letting her know I was praying for her and thinking of her.  She sent me a text message very suddenly on Sunday saying one word…”Stop”.  

Very long story but apparently she had decided that she didn’t want to talk to anyone that weekend (not letting me know this of course) and was mad at me that I had crossed the boundary that she had made in her mind by calling her and leaving a message.  For the next several months, I didn’t call my friend…I let her call me. 

Right about this time, a lot of really hard things started happening in my life.  Crazy stuff like we had three suicides happen in our ministry in the same month.  Stuff that made me need to talk about me and have someone to lean on. 

I found someone else to talk to.

My friend told me she needed some space and that we could schedule a time to talk in a month – schedule it on the calendar because she needed to not worry that I was going to call her when she didn’t have “energy” to engage with me.

That was the end of our friendship.  I was able to be a grown up in the situation and let her know that the way she was engaging with me was not healthy or loving and if she would like to engage with me differently – I would love to continue our friendship but I was not going to allow her to treat me that way anymore.

But that incident marked the last time I would call people just to chat or to catch up.  I stopped calling because I had been told that I was bothering people, interrupting their lives. 

And I believed it – maybe not consciously but deep down in the little girl parts of my soul.

Now since then I have had one particular friend who continues to remind me that real friendship is allowing people to interrupt your life to talk.  Real friendship is there for the other person when they are going through hard times – to listen.  Real friendship is a two way street – not all one sided.

She tells me this.  I believe her. 

But I still don’t call people. 

So I am working on this.  I am working on picking up the phone and calling someone if I think of them and want to say hi.   It doesn’t happen very often…so if you get a phone call from me – you will be one of the lucky few.