By Moyo Olisa
It’s that time of the year when everyone starts talking about leaving people behind in the year. I think I usually fall into a lot of people’s lists, because my list of “friends” seems to reduce every year. Not that I have a problem with it, but it’s a clear indication that people have a problem with something that I am doing.
If you ask anyone who really knows me, they will tell you that I am an absolute “people person”, but I lack basic communication skills. It’s funny because my job requires me to constantly engage with thousands of entrepreneurs across the continent, and I absolutely love it, but how is it that I am not able to apply the same fundamental skill set when dealing with family and friends? As with any other weird symptom I have experienced, I went against my better judgement and consulted WebMB. Scrolling past the usual brain cancer and certain death predictions, I finally came across a diagnosis that seemed more believable and yet still unbelievable.
I have a form of Social Anxiety Disorder called Telephonophobia (I swear I’m not making this up).
In this fast-paced world where everyone can be reached through a button on a mobile communication device, and people develop FOMO (Fear OF Missing Out) from being out of the loop for a few hours, its actually not uncommon to find people who instead have the Fear Of Not Missing Out (FONMO).
Why am I able to better engage with strangers than familiars? I pondered over this for hours before it finally came to me. Conversations with friends and family are extremely stressful! When strangers call, there is always a reason why; an enquiry about something work related, a delivery, wrong number, etc, and I always have a ready response. These calls are predictable and last for a short time. With familiars, I never know what the call is about, and because most conversations start with them reprimanding me for not calling them or responding to their messages, I decide to ignore their calls. Conversations with familiars can go on forever (I don’t know why they get so comfortable) and its mentally exhausting having to engage in a conversation that I didn’t want to start in the first place. Like, unless I am sick or its my birthday or something major recently happened in my life, don’t call me, I’ll call you (NOT).
This is not limited to phonecalls, it also extends to messages. My whatsapp is filled with hundreds of unread messages and it makes me just avoid the platform. I HATE SMALL TALK! I find people are worse when it comes to messaging. Instead of just going straight to the point, they first ask about parts of my life that I do not want to discuss – My neighbour’s dog is fine, thanks. Then its time to end the conversation, because I don’t want to be rude and just ghost the conversation, it ends up looking something like:
ME: “Okay, we’ll talk about it when we see. Later”
Other Person (OP):” Why are you always dismissing me”
Me: “What? LOL. I’m not”
OP: “Have you eaten?”
Me: “Err.. I don’t eat dinner.”
OP: “Really? Lol.”
Me: “Yes. Lol.”
OP: “LOL”
Me: “LOL”
OP: “LoL”
Me: “LoL”
OP: “lol”
And it goes on and on!
I keep promising a certain someone that I will try to do better, because this phobia really affects the people I love, so I think I will start by reaching out to all 893 people (clearly no longer friends) whose messages I’ve aired on WhatsApp since January this year and wish them all a Merry Christmas and joyeaux New Year. Hopefully I don’t receive more than 10 “Lol. Who this?” messages in response.
I wish there was Mail Chimp/ Mail Merge for WhatsApp… Zuckerberg should look into this, and no, broadcast messages don’t quite cut it.
Anyways, I wish everyone reading this a Merry Christmas and Joyeux New Year, and if there’s something you’ve been doing that you feel you should improve on, there’s no better time than now to make things right.
