Sometimes my mom makes me talk to people
i don't answer it. in my family usually none of us answered it when it was ringing. my mom because sometimes she couldn't hear it and other times because we got all these telemarketing calls. me because i didn't want to talk to anyone that wasn't a friend even if it was just to answer it and pass it along to my mom. so it was easier just to wait for it to go to voicemail and then when someone started to leave a message if any of us wanted to talk to them, we'd pick it up or transfer the phone to the person who wanted it. i used to talk to one friend on the phone all the time. he would call our house a lot and begin to leave a message so we'd know it was him and pick up. my family had some superstitions about our phone. we were all sure that we could tell who it was by the way the phone rang. i really believed that too. we'd just be dead on so much of the time in predicting who was going to leave the message and getting it right there was no other explanation for it. when i was daring i might pick it up while it was ringing if i had a strong feeling it was my friend. i got that wrong a few times but not that many.
now i never answer the phone unless it's family. i don't answer skype calls either. i declined a few of those the other day.