Please Hold All My Calls. Seriously, All of Them.

Yesterday, for no special reason, my lovely wife called me. This was very sweet, and it was nice to hear her voice in a non "some teacher called me and someone is sick/in trouble" setting. Unfortunately, this call once again reminded me of one of my greater, and more peculiar failing. I absolutely, positively suck at talking on the phone.

Now I've mentioned being antisocial before, but that isn't what's going on here. Rather, there is something about trying to hold a conversation on the telephone that simply escapes me. As a result, every phone conversation I have without a specific agenda is full of awkward pauses and stilted, half-started topics. You'd think I was talking to that hot chick I had a crush on in middle school. Okay, I suppose technically I am, but now I've been married to her for almost fourteen years, so you'd think my conversation skills would be a bit smoother.

What's funny is that it's only casual conversation I fail at. You get me on the phone for a reason and I'm golden. Even things that are supposed to be uncomfortable don't phase me at all. I went through three phone interviews with Microsoft, and the most uncomfortable I got was asking them to wait a moment until I found an empty meeting room. (What? I was off the clock and on my way out the door.) If we have business to conduct, even something as simple as "call and see how so and so is doing", then I'm golden. You should hear me order a pizza - it's closing in on high art. But just calling to catch up? Yeah, things are gonna get weird.

Perhaps I rely too heavily on visual cues during conversation, or on being able to pause and think out my response. I mean, if I'm sitting across from someone, I never fail to find some random topic that we can chat about. Hell, right here on this blog I manage to pump out a page a day five days a week nearly without fail. You call me up just to catch up though, you'll find I don't have a thing to say, and I'm at a loss as to why that is. I can chat online. I can chat in person. I cannot chat on the phone.

On the bright side, my rollover minutes on my cell phone are quickly approaching legendary status.