the dreaded social skill

[GalacticDeath Bandit]

or lack of it.

What the hell is up with that? I just tried to contact the gender clinic that i'm on the list with (by email of course!) and their prefered method of communication is by phone. I know i'd get further if i called them up... but phone?

Me? Use a phone? Talk to a complete stranger on the other end? Talk? Physically have to talk? I have trouble calling up my own mates (in fact - i just dont, i text them).

I know for a fact this is one of those GID side effect things lol We all have this problem i'm sure!

It makes me feel like such a tard.

[deja true]

I know for a fact this is one of those GID side effect things lol We all have this problem i'm sure!

Um...don't think so, Bandit...

A lot of us actually become more social when we're in our chosen role, I'm thinking. I know I am. As "what's his name" I'm rather taciturn and short spoken, but deja loves to talk and interract with others. Shy, sure, but that's because when meeting new people, there's a pressure to make a good impression. But ater that initial meeting, the shyness vanishes.

If you want what you want bad enough, you'd better get used to talking to people, 'cos you sure ain't gonna be able to do your therapy by e-mail!

Interaction with people involves a lot more than just the words, hun. Facial expression and gesture and just being in the same place with another human being is just as important if not more.

Your apparently rather extreme introversion is not gonna help you get what you want. It seems to me that you're actually holding yourself back by hiding behind a keyboard. You need help with that inability to communicate as much as your gender issues. Start with that...

Sorry if that hurts a little, really am...but please, Bandit, talk to people. It's how we all become human!

......

[Cai]

or lack of it.

What the hell is up with that? I just tried to contact the gender clinic that i'm on the list with (by email of course!) and their prefered method of communication is by phone. I know i'd get further if i called them up... but phone?

Me? Use a phone? Talk to a complete stranger on the other end? Talk? Physically have to talk? I have trouble calling up my own mates (in fact - i just dont, i text them).

I know for a fact this is one of those GID side effect things lol We all have this problem i'm sure!

It makes me feel like such a tard.

I have the exact same problem. I despise making phone calls. (in fact, I've just been posting about it here, because I'm in a similar place - hormone clinic needs me to call for an appt.)

The last thing you'd call me is shy if you met me in person. Group situations freak me out a little, but I can mostly handle them. I have no problem with therapists, professors, classmates, co-workers, etc. I just hate making phone calls. I don't know if it's a voice thing, a GID thing, or just a "me" thing.

My solution most of the time is to work around it. When I need an appointment, I do it in person. If I want to order in food, I drive to the place and do a take-out order. And if I want contact with my friends, I text or email them and then hang out in person.

Unfortunately, sometimes there is no other solution. I can't drive to Philadelphia just to set up an appointment. Knowing that doesn't make it any easier, though.

[John]

I hate talking on phones too.

[4serrus]

Funny how many of us hate the phone... I can't stand it. I have to temporarily pretend to be someone else if I want to make a phone call somewhere. In-person is actually worse for me. I can only really do things effectively online.

[ZenFrost]

Count me in the no phone group.

And Deja, like you said, facial expression and gesture are both very important. But you can't get that on a phone. Jon didn't say anything about hiding behind a keyboard or having extreme introversion, he just said he didn't like phones. I know I often have an easier time passing when people can actually see me dressed as a guy and using male-type mannerisms but on a phone, all they've got is a girly voice and that's why the GID thing makes phones hard, which is I think what he meant.

Phones are just different, because you're not talking to a person, you're talking through a device at a person. It's literally having a conversation with a piece of plastic, and only having vocal tones isn't enough to really convey meaning well. Talking face to face presents other cues to what the other person is thinking, and even in text you have some devices that can carry more meaning (stylistic things like bolding and underlining, emoticons, and the ability to revise what you're writing and for the reader to read more than once if the meaning is not clear). So picking up a phone to talk to someone--particularly a stranger-- is a whole other ballpark of anxiety when one of your most obvious giveaways is the natural pitch of your voice.

And not to mention getting put on hold, being transfered from one person to another and having to restate your issue over and over, winding up playing phone tag, get cut off, having interference on the line, or any of the other things that make using a phone very unpleasant.

[Alan]

I hate hate hate phones. Unless I know you very well, in which case, I don't mind them that much.

But the idea that I should randomly call people up.... pah! I hates them.

I text people more often than I call them. Actually, I just refuse to give people my phone number, so they can't call me and engage me in hour-long talks.

[sabo10]

I've always hated talking on the phone -- my voice is too high and feminine. There are no visual cues to let the other other person know who I really am.

...This was a real problem in university. I never wanted to be the one phoning up for curry or pizza.

KP.

[Punkster]

Yep me too....I hate phones with a passion lol. If my mobile rings i can see who is calling me and I'm a little more prepared to answer it but if the landline rings I go into complete panic because I dont know who it is, what they want or have any idea how the convesation will go. I usually leave it to Felix to answer or if at work I just refuse lol.

I prefer to talk face to face or via email, phones are evil things lol.

[Wolfie]

Maybe we should rename ourselves Phone Hating Transmen!

I add my name to the list of text only phone - and I got an iphone - but only cos I love gadgets and its got cool applications, GPS etc not because you can actually make phone calls - why on earth would you waste time doing that? Then I can't look at it!

[Stacy GG]

I don't know if its transmen only , I truthfully dislike answering the phone myself because I do it all the time at work and used to work customer service for a credit card company so now if I'm not expecting a phone call I don't answer when at home. Stupid Phone!

[Abraxas]

Count me in. Can't stand the phone. Even if it's people I know really well, although I don't get that level of anxiety with them. I've had panic attacks over having to use the phone. Lots.

And it's nothing to do with my voice. I've never had a voice issue in relation to dysphoria or anything. And I get called sir on the phone, at drive thrus, etc. So I don't know what it is.

Then again, I have problems seeing new people in person, too. Social anxiety and whatnot. It's just a lot worse on the phone for whatever reason.

[Drake]

Wow, it looks like all the guys so far hate the phone.
I do too! I loathe them. For me it's not the fact that I'm talking through plastic or an issue of passing (I actually pass better on the phone ), I just don't like speaking much in general. I have conversation problems and I am completely incapable of "idle chatter" in person, with my friends, or on the phone, therefore I always come off TOO direct. I need a subject if I'm going to talk to someone. My mom heard me talking to a librarian once on the phone and said I was too direct and actually came off as rude.

I'm able to talk on forums because they're arranged in topics, and that's how I roll.

[dancinginthedark]

Good morning guys,

I'm curious and wondered if:

1) it's simply the act of talking on a phone that does you in?

OR

2) it's the "I don't sound enough like a guy" thing? Reading sounds like many don't have the voice thing conquered just yet. Or maybe you're still dealing with the my voice is squeaking blues because it's changing??


BTW none of you are tards.


dancin


~

[4serrus]

Well, in my case...

The way I was raised, when you're being a consumer, customer, patient...any situation that customarily requires a certain degree of politeness, you're suppossed to act and speak a certain way. That's what you're taught growing up, and of course girls and boys are taught to act differently. It's a learned behavior that becomes very ingrained. This is how you're suppossed to act in public.

So, personally, my parents taught me how to be a demure little christian girl in public. It felt awkward and I hated it because I'm not a demure little christian girl, but I dont' know how to act any other way. Nobody's around to teach me how to act in public with the "politeness mask" as a man, so I have to fuddle through on my own and what I can get by watching other people. Remember the first time your mom had you pay for something at the cash register by yourself, or the first time you ordered pizza by yourself? First time you had to call a doctor's office by yourself? It's kind of like that, all the time.

But, maybe I just grew up really sheltered. I won't argue with that. I'm also naturally very, very shy.

[Lisa Golightly]

I can talk... the buoyancy of vodafone stock is down to me...

But not being able to talk is very boy.. My male best friend always talks to me via text... Never by voice on the phone... You are not alone methinks.

[ZenFrost]

For me Mae, it's both. I don't like a phone because it lacks the visual cues that talking face to face gives, but I also hate that my voice is a dead giveaway on the phone whereas face to face talking gives me more of a chance to present as male.

[dancinginthedark]

Thank you 4serrus and Zen.

I knew I was tired this week but I must be extremely tired to have not though this out more. Like I never considered the social cues we learn at our mother's knee and the lack of visual cues when we talk on the phone being as big of a problem as it is.

That sucks. Does mentally telling yourself to be more assertive help when you talk on the phone serrus? Does the frustration help you hold onto that assertion if you do? I think I would be pissed at the whole damn situation and wondered/worried if it was me I would snap someone's head off.... or gawd much worse burst into tears. I hate to cry. And when I get mad it almost always makes me cry which just makes me madder.

How does one get their voice to gruffen up (is that even a word) ? I know a sore throat or cold will make the voice sound deeper sometimes but that can't be a viable solution. And if you aren't on T yet you wouldn't have mones to help you out. So what can you do to enhance your voices?

Would just consistently lowering your voice become ingrained enough to become second nature in time?

I know most of you are young yet. A small comfort is that as we age many of us will have a natural deepening of our voices.

Have any of you considered using a Cell phone voice disguiser? These things have been around for ages. I used one so anyone calling would have no idea I was a female. My apologies if I manage to piss off/annoy any one with this suggestion.

dancin

As usual take what you can use from my words and let the rest go

[Abraxas]

Yeah, it's nothing to do with the voice for me, as I mentioned. I have rather a deep voice, considering I'm not on T. I'm typically around tenor range and actually have a lower-pitched voice than a lot of the guys I know, most of the time. My voice is fairly inconsistent when it comes to range (sometimes my bottom note is a bass C or lower (I've hit Bb quite a few times, and as low as F once), sometimes it's an E or F above-- which doesn't sound like a huge difference, but it really is).

My voice has never hindered my passing in any way. *shrug*

I honestly have no idea why I'm so terrified of the phone. I always have been, since I was a little kid. And before I was old enough to have friends with cell phones (or one, myself), I would never call my friends because then I'd have to talk to their moms. I'd usually just walk to their houses. Cell phones have made it easier for me because I know at least most of the time the person I called is going to be the person who's answering.

[Flameboy]

Well, I'm the dissenting voice here - I don't mind using the phone at all. I'm quite happy to phone organisations, businesses, friends - whoever I need (or want) to.

Of course, I prefer it now that I automatically pass on the phone, but it never actually bothered me before.

Dave

[4serrus]

That sucks. Does mentally telling yourself to be more assertive help when you talk on the phone serrus?

It helps. Before I figured out that I was maybesortakindatrans (lol), I would get anxiety attacks if I had to use a phone for anything. I don't really know why. Now that I understand what's going on in my head, I can kind of tell myself to shut up and just make the stupid phone call.

[ZenFrost]

I can lower my voice, but it's just so hard to do so that I don't bother with it. And there's such a fine line between lowering it enough to sound male, and lowering it too much so it sounds fake.

[dancinginthedark]

Nothing is ever easy is it?

Now my mind is mulling over what you could do & can I somehow help find an answer to fix this or at least make it better....sorry guys, my maternal instincts kicking in again. Ugh I really should just get a cat so I stop trying to mother everyone. lol

[Sarah...]

Interesting. I've got a bit of both sides. Business 'phone calls? No problem. All I had to do was pick up the 'phone, communicate the facts, put it down. Simple. Social calls? Nightmare. I couldn't hear the other person properly, couldn't see their visual clues, couldn't provide my own visual clues and the conversation never was a conversation - it was a stilted exchange of words that ended up making us both feel bad.

So, did finally accepting myself, coming out to my nearest and dearest as TG change things? No! I'll tell you what did though. Getting Skype. Now, video calling with my mum and sister has become a much easier way to talk long distance. Gone are the stilted calls, here are the 1 hour chats that are fun to do.

So for me it was nothing to do with spending years trying to be male when I was more sure I was female, it was simply about seeing the other person. Oh, and the business thing? Since I swapped career most of my interactions in business are in person, which is much better.

Sarah...

[Semok]

Phones are scary because they might cause ear cancer. Also the government might be listenin', which kinda makes it fun since I enjoy pickin' up a phone and yellin' words such as "bomb" and "government conspiracies" and then hangin' up and seein' if they come to take me away (sadly they only came once, and it was a short visit). Aside from that, phones are scary and I resort to textin' now that I have a cell phone that allows me to. Before that I had to communicate telepathically with people which didn't work out so good since my mind would wander around and get lost.
Phones = Sad
Textin' = Yay!