Don’t Ask to Ask, Just Ask

Person: “Can I ask you something?”
Me: “Yes”
Person: “Can we chat on the phone?”
Me: “Email me what you want to ask”
Person: “It’s too hard to explain in an email, can we talk?”
Me: “No, sorry. I don’t take open-ended calls”
Person: “OK, it’s this” (easily explained in two sentence email)

This happens all the time. All could have been done in a single email. Instead four vague asks just to get to one.