everyone says do the video call and i cannot face being on camera

i know the advice. i agree with the advice. i have argued for the advice at other people in other threads.

i cannot do it.

something about being on camera with somebody i have never met makes me want to leave the country. i can talk to strangers in person perfectly well. i can write to them for weeks. put a small square of my own face on a screen and i lose the ability to form sentences and spend the whole time watching myself instead of listening.

so far i have got around this by simply not doing it, which means i have met three people without it, and two of those were fine and one was a waste of an afternoon that a call would have prevented.

is there a version that works for people like me? voice only, camera off, shorter? or do i just have to be uncomfortable for ten minutes like an adult.

Voice first, then. A ten minute phone call does most of what the video call does: it confirms a person, it gives you their pace and their humour, and it makes them a great deal harder to disappear on. I would rather somebody did the audio version than skipped the whole step because the camera part was unbearable.