Strangely enough, one of my pet peeves actually is friends who call on a regular basis for no particular reason. Sure, I dislike being called only for favors as much as you. By the same token, I'm less than thrilled if someone calls without anything at least semi-important to talk about. It could be maybe they're starting a new job, met a new significant other, even bought a nice flashlight. That's fine-at least they're calling to discuss something. If the conversation digresses to other things, that's usually fine as well. But what I hate is the "I'm bored and have nothing to do so I'll make you as unproductive as me" type of call. Considering the nature of a phone call (basically it's an interruption in whatever you're doing), I consider that type of call as rude as a "surprise" visit. And it seems the people prone to doing this will call you every day, even several times a day, if you let them. That's hardly the once every other month "I just called to see how you're doing" type of call which I can at least tolerate. Thankfully the few times I've met people prone to doing that, I had other family members pick up the phone, and say I was out (this was before caller ID). Eventually they got the message. Either the friendship ended because I didn't meet their criteria of being available to hear their rants 24 hours a day, or they only knew to call me if it was something very important. Sorry to say it was usually the former. People who just call others regularly for no good reason are inherently selfish and self-centered. They rarely change.
