Telephone phobia!! Please help?

I know this sounds weird. I am not a recluse or weirdo and have normal relationships with people and great friends. Yet, I have an aversion or some unaccountable distaste to answer the phone. My friends realise this and seldom call. Yet, there is this professor who called up yesterday. I dint attend as usual. Since then, he has called 24 times in two days!! The more he calles, the more I am stubborn not to attend. I have to face him. What do I say?? ( I know it is nothing urgent. He calls all the time to discuss some commonplace stuff)

As far as the Professor goes...that's totally uncalled for and could really be considered harassment as well as unethical. I'd simply tell him..knock it off.

As far as my own distaste for phones, I think that goes back to having to be on them so much in business. A phone call usually meant a problem or someone upset. It often became an interruption to something I needed to complete. At home, I don't want to hear a ringing phone. Then, a call after 10pm always meant something bad. Someone had a serious problem or someone died. It was usually Dad who would call at that hour and it was never just to talk. So I'd cringe when the phone rang.

Now I have Caller ID and an answering machine where I can screen calls. I'd just as soon everyone leave a message and I'll get right back to them if I'm available. If home, I can hear them leave the message and can choose to pick up if desired or needed.

May sound selfish, but it's rarely something that needs addressed right at that second. Guess it's now a conditioned reflex to hate phones. I have a cellphone for one reason. Emergencies and outgoing calls when on the road. Very few have the number. I don't have that cell phone and texting fetish everyone else seems to be unable to live without.

I am similar, I don't know why, I can't stand it, socially I'm what you'd classify as 'normal', but my friends notice and just stop calling. I love texting and e-mail much better.

I hate when there are group school projects, we have to exchange numbers and I dread a call.

The professor thing sounds kind of creepy actually! No offense! I would just answer and get it over with, he'll probably ask where you were, why didn't you attend, etc. You can be honest or say 'please call if only an emergency', or say that it makes you uncomfortable, or that you worried it was something bad and started avoiding class.

A lot of people don't like speaking on the phone. I'm one of them. Most people will understand and contact you through another means but there are those who just refuse to do so. So in those times you'll probably have to just answer the phone and deal with the professor. Then when you see him in person, try explaining why you don't answer.

voice mail? turn off the ringer? that's what I do. I hate to answer the phone. if I'm here alone, the ringer is off.

I find it more strange that a prof. would call 20 some times in 2 days!

it is a recognised condition http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/phone... and I lived with it for several years during a particularly bad bout of depression. It was impossible to explain to family and friends that I was terrified of the phone, that something as simple to them as switching on a light was an acute fear to me.
I once saw and episode of Dr Phil in which a lady with the same phone anxieties as you describe was featured and his advice was just 'answer it, what can posibly happen to you?' and that just doesn't help, it's like telling someone afraid of heights to 'just go to the top of the Empire state building.
I knew it wasn't useful in my day to day life, with a sick child to carry on like this, and so gradually, and it did take a long time, I began to ask a particular frined I trusted, to call me, and as long as I knew it was her, I began to ignore the sweaty palms and dryness in my mouth and just pick the receiver up.
I still dislike phones and try not to have to deal with them too often, but I am getting better.

Stephen Fry described phones a menace, 'like someone demanding to speak with me and saying I want your attention and I want it now,' so a lot of people share the same or similar feelings.

I don't know why anyone would call 24 times in two days, he sounds like a nuisance. Just front up to him and say, sometimes when I'm working I find I become easily distracted by the phone, would it be possible to discuss any details now so that I'm clear that I know what I'm doing and can get on with it.