A friend joined me today for my thrice-weekly writing session at the coffeehouse. Well before I landed on the corn-dusted shores of Chambana, this friend answered pesky questions from me—where should I go for this? Where should I go for that?
We met one morning for coffee almost three years ago now, and as we loaded our kids in our tandem mini-vans, she turned to me.
“Next week you’ll come over,” she said. “There is a difference between getting together for coffee and going over to someone’s house.”
I put her off for weeks.
It wasn’t her. It was me. And it still is me. My friends here are warm and kind and generous. They reach out to me, they make me feel welcome in their already close-knit circles. And so often, I shut them out.
I don’t do it to be mean. I don’t do it because I don’t care for them, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that it’s hard for me to trust people, no matter how open they are. It doesn’t help that I’m notoriously scatterbrained: emails go unanswered, RSVPs are late, thank-you cards get pushed aside for other tasks.
I wasn’t always this way. Or at least, before, my reserved nature was polite. I could be counted on to respond in socially graceful ways. Now? Not so much. The only way I can defend myself is to say that my own husband and kids suffer from my absent-mindedness, too.
Not much of a defense, that.
***
I wore a button-down navy blue shirt-dress with white polka dots. Just three days before, I went to the salon and bid my stylist cut off my waist-length college-girl hair, in favor of a soft, wavy bob that brushed the top of my shoulders.
I clutched my Steno pad in a sweaty palm, as my editor led me to a counter-top and a plastic chair. He waved me into the chair and pointed at the phone:
“That’s yours,” he said. “When someone else’s phone rings and they aren’t at their desk, pick it up and answer ‘newsroom’ and tell them your name.”
I looked at him, looked at the phone, and looked back at him.
A path littered with bad relationships and lost friends led to that battered, beige phone. I spent my senior year of college living alone in self-imposed exile after a terrible break-up and a series of friendships gone awry. I was at fault as much as those who hurt me, but it was hard for me to see my own foibles clearly.
After 12 months of speaking to almost no one but my family and the five children I babysat for, I was ill-prepared for the life of a local reporter. I had to find my own sources, drum up stories, walk the beat, as they say. I had to work the phones and glad-hand at Kiwanis meetings.
***
When I write for money, I still do a lot of reporting. The Internet makes life so much easier: interviews by email, searching for sources through webforms, and sites designed specifically to pimp content experts.
I wrote a series of stories once about a controversial zoning law in the town I covered. Citzens were pitted against one another, and the dividing lines were geographical. I had to get comments from both sides, using what we called the criss-cross.
These big, bound books were filled with addresses, and the corresponding phone numbers. I looked up the address, dialed the number, and asked to speak to whomever would talk.
It was excrutiating. Worse than the fireman’s banquet, where ruddy-cheeked men old enough to be my father patted me, tipsily, on the knee. Worse than the town board’s Christmas party, where I mingled with local officials in my red dress.
After awhile, I learned to shed myself and don another persona altogether—one that was confident, assertive, competent. Even friendly and social.
Soon enough, this persona became part of me, and I can still slide in and out of her when I need to. Faculty parties, dinners where I am the only spouse, chats with preschool moms I don’t know very well. I can make charming small talk with almost anyone.
But still, inside, is that sweaty-palmed girl who purposefully excluded herself from almost any social situation that might put her sensitive, bruised and fearful heart at risk.
***
I don’t call my friends on the phone. I email them, knowing full well that some of them won’t check their email for days. I don’t invite people to my home a lot. I’d rather meet on neutral ground. I don’t like to stay long, or extend myself too intimately.
That shows here, too, when I don’t email you back when you comment, or when I just click “share” in my Google Reader instead of leaving you a note. It’s easier for me. It relieves me of the burden of seeming like the cool customer some of you seem to think I am.
Because I’m not. I’m still a 15-year-old girl who was always left out, chosen last in gym, runner up in the class elections. I’m scared of you, and of the intimacy that a relationship with you might bring.
I hold out my hands to push you away, because if I don’t care about you, you can’t hurt me. I can’t get jealous when you have dinner with each other or spend the weekends together.
But I eavesdrop on your Twitter conversations or read the comments you leave for each other or listen to your conversations about impromptu play dates I wasn’t invited to, and feel left out—when in reality, I am segregating myself.
Because if I don’t pick up that phone, you can’t hang up on me.
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This is a really great perspective that I think many can relate to… and maybe explains behavior I might not understand in a friend or even myself sometimes.
Steph
Adventures In Babywearing’s last blog post..Recaptured
This one REALLY spoke to me….. yes, yes, yes…..
thesandwichlife’s last blog post..Shades of Blue
OMG, you just peeked into my head and wrote my thoughts exactly. EXACTLY. . .
Trueself’s last blog post..How Come?
Folks with phone aversions seem well met on the internet.
I’ve always thought my voice often betrays me … my words when they are spoken seem so weightless. Also? I am really somewhat shy.
i am a total phonophobe, for precisely the reasons you describe. having people over doesn’t trigger the same insecurities for me, though…so long as i know people are coming. i’m still not great at being dropped in on in the evenings, when i go all hermit on my own ass.
i think of it as protective, somehow. i’m not entirely sure what i’m protecting.
great post. (and yeh, i was, briefly, a small-town news reporter utterly befuddled when assigned to find stories out of Women’s Institute meetings).
Bon’s last blog post..shut the f*ck up Bonnie
I think many of us — especially reporters, for some odd reason — feel exactly this way. I know I do.
Hillary’s last blog post..Let’s all take a Moment
You’re singing my tune…
LifeAsIKnowIt’s last blog post..Notes From The Top Bunk
This is exactly, EXACTLY, how I feel. Not so much the shy part necessarily, but the part about keeping people out because then, maybe, they can’t hurt me.
I avoid the phone like the plague. I avoid inviting people to my home because there’s no escape then if I tire of them or if the intimacy level gets ramped up. I have been avoiding my certain people recently because I am moving away and if I can distance myself, it’ll be easier to say goodbye. Or at least thats what I keep telling myself.
Thea’s last blog post..Oh hai!
Bah, I’ll get you out of your shell with me one of these days, even from 1200 miles away. I double dog dare you to send me your phone number – you KNOW I would totally call you!
xo
catnip’s last blog post..other people’s gardens
((hugs))
I am going to hound you until July! :O)
Domestic Extraordinaire’s last blog post..The Winners
I am starting to wonder if this is part of my problems lately…especially after we moved. Why I gravitate toward the friendships that are old and comfortable instead of trying to find new ones.
Thank you for the post.
Molly’s Mom’s last blog post..WW – Copping a feel
Oh gosh, I can really relate to this, even the part about phone phobia as a past reporter. The last line – my head screamed, “YES!”
Kimberly’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday: Triathlon – the next generation
Wow…yeah. Me to.
Jennifer’s last blog post..Hustling
and I thought I was the only one. really.
sally’s last blog post..positive
I was just getting ready to comment that I think there are many, many of us out here who feel the same way as you do and just as the comments popped up I saw just what I expected. See Mrs.C you fit in just fine out here!
I could throw my phone away, well that is if I didn’t use it for texting, twittering, emailing and facebook.
Crystal D’s last blog post..The A-word
Looks like you’ve spoken to a lot of us- whether you wanted to or not.
Get it? Ha.
Lame, I know.
I was reading along just fine until I got to the last three paragraphs. Kinda hit me like a ton of bricks. Quite a bit of that is me now, last week, last year and probably next year.
I need to get out more. Maybe not hating everyone would help too.
I go back and forth. Sometimes, I can chat it up just fine and other days I just want to hide behind my laptop.
This also made me think about how lucky I was to have spent my newspaper career in features — no boring banquets or town hall meetings — but I did have to answer a lot of phone calls like these: “Why wasn’t ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ on at 1? Because the TV Journal says it was supposed to be on, so I circled it and then it wasn’t on, so when is it going to be on?…” and “What’s in a Reuben Sandwich?”
Kerrie’s last blog post..The Case of Too Much Wicker: Part I in the No More Somedays Series
call me.
Bwahahahahahahaha.
I get the part about having an outgoing persona for work, I learned it in politics and use it now when I see 100 clients a week even when I’m really an introvert and my favorite jobs are the ones in tiny offices where I never see the public.
And I’ve noticed you say no to getting together a lot. It’s kind of confusing as your friend. But I’ll make more of an effort if that will help.
Rayne of Terror’s last blog post..
I guess I should be glad that you pick up the phone when I call. Ha.
lbotp’s last blog post..sound bites
I so get this – I often found being a reporter excruciating. I remember when I started my first job for a big-city daily it was my job to go to teh family of people who had died in unnatural circumstances and get a photo and info for a story. I would just sit in the car and steel myself. I rememebr once the parents of an 18-year-old girl who was killed in a horrible car wreck spoke to me for three hours and then my editor chopped the copy I wrote to three inches and they complained in a letter to the editor that I was callous because I wrote such a brief description about her … sooooo hard.
And BTW? I’d never hang up on you.
Don Mills DIva’s last blog post..Always and forever
I hate talking on the phone. A happy day for me is one where the phone never rings. Love it.
We are so alike it’s scary. But in a reassuring, good way.
And we are so getting together for lunch n’ sewing soon.
Misc’s last blog post..Ladies First
This reminds me of the most excruciating time I had as a reporter… a story about a campus sexual assault. I could not get anyone to talk, so I had to write it from the police report. It said “hispanic male”, so that’s what I wrote. We/I had hate mail for the rest of the year for racial profiling or whatever you want to call it. On top of that, this was the one story where I experienced University censorship – I had been able to catch a photo of the student moving out of the dorm. No faces or even license plates, just a close shot of a pickup truck with a mini fridge and some furniture. I was told not to run it.
I understand being a phonaphobe – I’d rather order pizza on the internet than call for it.
I do think, now than the gloom has passed, it is time to plan a get together of local bloggers… on neutral territory of course.
Okay, we get Dominoes cause you can order on the internet too.
Not only do we share similar lives and the same name, we share this too. The entire time I was in WNY it took me much longer to establish friendships then it needed to. I was welcomed. But I was so overwhelmed with first time motherhood, I couldn’t imagine others would want me intruding, as they must be overwhelmed too. At least that is often my logic — I don’t want to intrude or inconvenience anyone. As I near 40, I think I’m realizing that inconvenience is what life is all about. And trying to smile through it together.
But I still will always hate the phone. I think that is why I left reporting.
Life in Eden’s last blog post..Sightings Update (now with more hints)
Wow, this is so me too. ME TOO. Except I don’t have that confident persona to call up when I need her. Drat.
Heather’s last blog post..Questionable Advertising
Oh my god. Oh my god, this post. THIS POST. I haven’t related to a post on this level in a very long time.
Truly, through most of this I felt like you were talking about me.
I knew it. I talk about you all the time and the husband says “Have you met her yet?” and I say “No, she always cancels on me, I’m sure I’ll meet her in the street.” Well, it took two years but I did and I’m not that scary am I? Can I come to the lunch and sewing thing Misc mentioned up there?
Oh my GOD – were we separated at birth???
I literally shake when I have to call someone besides my husband. Even someone I’ve known for years, someone I know adores me, someone who has BEGGED me to call.
We all need to form a support group. Where we only e-mail each other, of course.
Coco’s last blog post..Won’t You Be My Slightly Creepy Neighbor?
I was sexually abused over a period of 3 years starting when I was 11. The scum who hurt me was my father’s best friend and a totally trusted frequent visitor in our home. He hurt me physically. He hurt me emotionally. He threatened me. He made me believe that I didn’t matter – and because I didn’t matter and he did, nobody would listen to me if I told anyone what was happening. I felt like I was nothing. I was taking up space that might be better used by someone else. I wanted to die.
I didn’t tell anyone what happened to me until my mom died unexpectedly. I was 44 years old. My reaction to her death was a surprise; I had a nervous breakdown. I ended up in counseling and over the following year I discovered the true impact being sexually and mentally abused over 30 years before had on me. Most importantly I discovered why I never told my parents or anyone close to me what happened. In a nutshell, I was afraid that they would not react or say the things I really needed and wanted them to do and say to me. I had two big fears; one was that they would blame me or that they knew what was happening and didn’t do anything about it. Those possibilities were paralyzing for me.
Between the times the abuse ended and when my mom died I went on with my life. I didn’t follow the typical behavior patterns of abused girls (risky behavior, early and many relationships with men, substance abuse – well, I do abuse chocolate). I was a good kid, well liked by adults and peers, a bit rebellious in an okay way; always the class clown and very much alone with my horrible secret. I also worked hard to separate myself from my family. After all, if they loved me they would have protected me. I felt like I didn’t belong in my family, I was different.
I surrounded myself with activities where I felt safe (mainly Camp Fire) and I preferred the company of families that made me feel safe and accepted me being me. Thinking back I can’t guarantee I was really being me then or if I was just looking for adults who were my idea of the kind of adult I wanted to become. Maybe they were adults who wanted me to be who I wanted to be. I always looked for ways I was different from my family and I wanted to be better than my family. The strange thing is that I really didn’t have a bad family. I guess I needed to think about my family in the negative so I had an excuse for what happened to me. When I think about it now I think I was inventing myself as I went along and somehow I managed to become a person I am happy with. The more time that passed the less I identified with the abused girl but the scars were still there.
I was always amazed that my parents never asked me why I set myself apart from the family and I have no idea if I ever would have told them had they asked. However through counseling I learned that my choice not to tell my family about what happened to me and my desire to stay away from my family was really me satisfying my need for some control in my life. My actions kept me at the center of their attention (so I assumed) because they were constantly trying to figure out why I made the choice to separate myself from them. Whenever I was around them everyone walked on eggshells, afraid to do or say anything that might put me off and hence, keep me away more. Deep down I think I wanted them to hurt because I hurt. I do know that, because of my choices, my parents did not see me graduate from either high school or college; my daughter did not get to know her grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins; I found out my mom was terminally ill only nine days before she died; and I let a lot of years go by that I can never get back.
I think far more people have the same thoughts than you imagine.
I do.
Jonathan’s last blog post..A Quiet Day at Home