If a magazine columnist rings your doorbell and surveys you by asking, "Who is the worst phone conversationalist you know?" make sure you put my name into consideration.

I hate talking on the phone. Wait, scratch that. Sometimes I enjoy talking on the phone, but only on rare occaisions, like when it's time to catch up with one of my best friends I haven't seen in a long time. For the people I see regularly or know I will see soon, I have difficulty maintaining a decent conversation. If the television is on, it'll probably distract me from devoting my full attention to the person on the other line. If I'm near my computer, I might actually surf the net while my caller tries to stir up a conversation. I prefer face-to-face talks, where I can see the other person's body language and make eye contact. If my eyes aren't focused I can drift off toward whatever my eyes actually see.

Most of the time, the talks don't completely disintegrate because the other person has something to say. After all, I've always been more of a listener than a talker. I'm more of a counter-talker. I mean, I'll play off the other person--- what they say, how they feel--- and base my words on those factors rather than create the talk from my own independent ideas. Tonight I was engaged in a phone call so pathetic the phone company should charge us double for wasting valuable energy from the cell phone towers. Ironically, the other line had a person I've shared some of my more memorable phone calls with: Haley. She had just come home from dance, exhausted and ready to go to bed. At the time, I was planning a weekend trip with some friends online. Basically, even though we normally talk about every other day but hadn't since Thursday, there was this whole "what's the point?" vibe from both of us. I think we fed off each other. My mind was going...

"What is there to say? I know how her weekend went. She knows how mine went. Nothing groundbreaking or exceptionally exciting is happened for either of us soon. I know basically everything about her I can think of. She knows all the 411 on me. I'm hot. I'm tired. She's exhuasted. I don't feel like trying to provoke any conversation. Let's just call it a night."

So I did. I think I made up something about getting back to homework, but I had no intentions of doing that. It would have been rude to say, "Ok, well this is going nowhere, so I'd rather go back to doodling on the computer without the cell phone pressed against my ear." The name "jerk" rang through my head a couple of times, but I think it was just one of those nights where we caught each other at the wrong time. I really don't mean to be boring or cold or rude on the telephone. If I'm going to talk to somebody, though, I prefer for them to be in the same room.

We can talk about this more if you want, but not over the phone, please. At least not tonight.