When I was 18 I really liked girls. This was before everyone had a cell phone. I used to muster the courage to call the girls house phone, talk to her dad, then ask to speak to his daughter. That shit was hard, but I didn’t realize how hard it would get when I’m older. I’ve had to create many many tricks to get me good at making calls. 1. Have synonyms for everything, even your name 2. Give yourself a badass pep talk before (you should do this everyday anyways) 3. Distract yourself from planning words 4. Spell words when you can 5. If shit gets bad, simply hang up or pretend reception is bad (“I’m sorry I can’t hear anything”) 6. I’ve always been ashamed of my stutter, so I’ve developed many “work arounds” when I get stuck. I also know a few words before I’m going to stutter so I can dodge it with another work/excuse/distraction/question/ or whatever to avoid stuttering. 7. Cough, fake sneeze, yell at your cat, distraction distraction distraction