On ‘No Caller ID’

a note on holiday traditions

About four times a year I get a call from a ‘No Caller ID’ that leaves me a message. Usually on holidays, however this year I got a call on a Monday night in June. The voicemails left on my phone always address me by name in an unrecognizable voice that grows even more unrecognizable over time. The caller usually asks me how I am doing and suggests that we get lunch or dinner, or even just that we speak. It still makes my skin crawl to listen to the messages, despite it having been three years since I received my first one. I never expect to receive the calls, either. I’ve created a routine that I follow whenever I receive the calls in public (it’s always quite uncomfortable when this happens): I excuse myself from where I am, I stare at the phone and let it ring until it reaches my voicemail, I read the deposited message that has become so familiar to me “Hi Ally… How are you…. I’d like to get lunch or dinner sometime… Or maybe just talk…”, and I resume what I was doing before I read it, hoping to deceive my company about what happened while I was gone.

The first couple of minutes of after receiving the calls reliably leave me feeling empty and alone. Ironically, it makes me want to reach back out to the caller. To say hello, to meet them for lunch. In my loneliness, the caller feels so familiar. And even as the caller’s voice has evolved and rasped over the years of messages in my inbox, it is nostalgic to me. I feel like I know the caller very well - like at one point in my life we could have been family.

On that night in June — the unexpected night where I received a call that departed from the pattern of only calling on holidays — I answered the call from the No Caller ID. It was midnight and I was alone in my room and I let my curiosity get the better of me. I had no intention of meeting them for lunch or dinner or speaking with them really at all. I think I just wanted to give them the opportunity to say what they needed to and maybe then they would stop calling. Or maybe I would start.

When I picked up the phone I didn’t say anything. I waited for them to begin, but they were silent for the first minute or two. I think they were also surprised that I picked up the phone. I realized I had been holding my breath since I’d accepted the call, so I exhaled and said hello. I don’t know what happened after that. There was a lot of talking and they were so hostile by the end of it. I think they may have started to cry. I tried to talk, but I don’t think they could hear me. I tried to tell them that their calls make me uncomfortable, but that it sometimes feels like I’ve known them for longer than I have; That maybe I would be interested in getting lunch if they told me who they were and if they stopped calling me with a No Caller ID. I don’t think they could hear me because they never responded. They talked right past me and then hung up after about twenty minutes. I’m not sure why I stuck around so long.

I didn’t receive a call from them again until this morning — Christmas day. They asked me if I wanted to get lunch or dinner, or even just to talk. I read the message at brunch with my family and deleted it when I got into the car. I realized that even if they called me with their phone number, if they introduced themselves and told me their name, I still wouldn’t recognize them. I don’t think they know who I am, either. I’m just someone they’ve called on holidays for three years. Sometimes it feels like I’ve known them for longer than that, but I try not to think about it.