1) I am setting off an alarm in your house demanding to speak with you. That’s easily the rudest thing I do in an average day.

2) The suspense of waiting to find out if I will be talking to a person or a machine. One ring. Two rings. Three. Just a few seconds but I find it agonizing.

3) I have an odd relationship to language. I’m hyperlexic – I can read a complete sentence in the blink of an eye. But I have a hard time understanding spoken language, and even when I recognize the words, I may find it difficult to understand what people are intending to communicate.

4) The sound quality is garbage. This is irritating enough on its own, but it also makes understanding even harder.

5) I struggle with my voice. It’s my main source of dysphoria. I want to be heard and understood for who I am. On some days this is harder than on others. Even when I’m doing well, I have a lot of anxiety about it.

6) Seemingly as a prank to make this whole experience even more alienating, sometimes the phone will randomly echo my own voice back to me as I talk.

7) People are surprised when I say I don’t like phone calls. You have a noisemaker that advertisers and politicians can activate at will, and you’re okay with that? I am not the crazy one here and I will die on this hill.