I think I leave horrible phone messages. You know, bad enough that I continue to cringe for the next 10 minutes as I replay what I said in my mind. Seems like a simple skill, but I'm pretty sure I suck at it.

Of course, the root of my problem is that I am not good with phones. This is actually something I have pondered a bit in the past and here's what I came up with. First off, when you can't see the person you are talking to you lose a huge portion of contextual information about the conversation. Everything becomes more ambiguous, and as i've said before, I am not a big fan of ambiguity in communication so I think I get discouraged. Then there's the fact that phone time is naturally more boring and distracting because you don't even get the best part of the conversation, watching for all the little quirks in people's faces as they laugh or smile or roll their eyes or whatever. Without the good stuff it's so easy to drift off and lose focus, which anyone who's been on the phone with me for more than three minutes would know. I am so bad sometimes that I will essentially forget that I am on the phone with someone while I am doing something on my computer, whoops =(

Now take my obvious phone talking deficiencies and then compound them with the fact that leaving a phone message is like talking to yourself. There isn't even anyone talking back to you so it's like giving a monologue, except that it's unscripted *and* recorded. sigh. I can't think of many things that are a greater recipe for disaster than that.

So, to anyone I happen to leave messages for, I appologize in advance.