Why I always get voicemail
It's ten at night and you call. Four rings, then the recorded voice, and you hang up before the beep.
You don't leave a message. You tell yourself they'll see the missed call, they'll understand, they'll ring back if they want to. You put the phone face down on the couch. It took some nerve to dial that number, and that gets me.
Except a missed call says nothing. On their end it's a name on a screen, not your evening, not wanting to hear their voice. So you wait for them to guess, and every hour without a call back turns into an answer you never asked for. Maybe what keeps coming back isn't the voicemail, but reaching out so low that if nobody takes your hand, you never asked for anything. Is that how it goes for you?
A missed call says nothing about your evening.
I was wondering…
How small do you have to keep it, before asking someone feels safe?