When I first received a text message from my mother I was amazed. Initially because she called it a "Tex-mex" and then because the act totally betrayed her aversion to anything technological.
It's no secret that I LOVE texting. I prefer it to talking on the phone in fact. Perhaps this comes from my love of the written word. How the letters string together giving birth to beautiful prose. Or how when given a limited space one can cleverly abridge the context of almost any communication; stripping away the fluff and leaving only the essence of meaning. Or maybe it is because I talk on the phone for a living and perpetual speaking is exhausting. 8 hours of constantly yapping makes me hate the sound of my disgusting voice. It makes my ears ring and the idea of listening to people's chatter while off the clock makes me absolutely bat shit. One thing I have learned from my work and from taking public transportation is that 90% of conversations are NOT THAT IMPORTANT! The meat of those conversations can be reduced to a set of characters. "Dinner at 8" "Running Late" "I miss you" "I hate you" etc. Today on the bus I heard a woman talking shit loudly into her phone about a hypochondriac with halitosis. It was funny as all get-out but completely unnecessary and useless noise. She could have sent a simple text that read, "i hate that fucking bitch, she has yuck mouth" end of story.
I also see nothing wrong with intense text battles. The vigorous back and forth becomes a heated Apache dance...ahhh the intrigue. Occasionally however one will be forced to endure the dreaded 'text life story'. This long ass message that reads like a dissertation is annoying but sometimes necessary. In all truth there is probably a reason why that person could not say those things to you in 1.)person to your face or 2.) over the phone in your ear. Maybe you are a terribly defensive person. Maybe you are confrontational and don't listen, maybe they just don't want to have an argument but simply want to just say what they feel. At any rate these text essays are funny and sometimes make nice conversation pieces at cocktail parties and sleepovers.
The moral to this verbose rant:
Phone conversation will NEVER replace actual human interaction. And sadly, human interactions are not always meaningful encounters. Texting and to the same extent, letter writing affords us more time to think about the value of what we are about to convey. Let's face it, WE are by nature really fucking annoying and selfish. When we converse with people half the time we are too busy thinking about what we are going to say next to hear what we are being told. At least if we are in a position where we are forced to read someone's words; a certain level of comprehension could be assumed.
So next time you get a "tex-mex" from me know that above all else; I was thinking about you fondly, and that while I value you for all your disgusting human failings (I have a shit-ton of these); I value your time even more to NOT waste it with dead empty words and useless noise. KIT, TTYL and XOXO *(^-^)
It's no secret that I LOVE texting. I prefer it to talking on the phone in fact. Perhaps this comes from my love of the written word. How the letters string together giving birth to beautiful prose. Or how when given a limited space one can cleverly abridge the context of almost any communication; stripping away the fluff and leaving only the essence of meaning. Or maybe it is because I talk on the phone for a living and perpetual speaking is exhausting. 8 hours of constantly yapping makes me hate the sound of my disgusting voice. It makes my ears ring and the idea of listening to people's chatter while off the clock makes me absolutely bat shit. One thing I have learned from my work and from taking public transportation is that 90% of conversations are NOT THAT IMPORTANT! The meat of those conversations can be reduced to a set of characters. "Dinner at 8" "Running Late" "I miss you" "I hate you" etc. Today on the bus I heard a woman talking shit loudly into her phone about a hypochondriac with halitosis. It was funny as all get-out but completely unnecessary and useless noise. She could have sent a simple text that read, "i hate that fucking bitch, she has yuck mouth" end of story.
I also see nothing wrong with intense text battles. The vigorous back and forth becomes a heated Apache dance...ahhh the intrigue. Occasionally however one will be forced to endure the dreaded 'text life story'. This long ass message that reads like a dissertation is annoying but sometimes necessary. In all truth there is probably a reason why that person could not say those things to you in 1.)person to your face or 2.) over the phone in your ear. Maybe you are a terribly defensive person. Maybe you are confrontational and don't listen, maybe they just don't want to have an argument but simply want to just say what they feel. At any rate these text essays are funny and sometimes make nice conversation pieces at cocktail parties and sleepovers.
The moral to this verbose rant:
Phone conversation will NEVER replace actual human interaction. And sadly, human interactions are not always meaningful encounters. Texting and to the same extent, letter writing affords us more time to think about the value of what we are about to convey. Let's face it, WE are by nature really fucking annoying and selfish. When we converse with people half the time we are too busy thinking about what we are going to say next to hear what we are being told. At least if we are in a position where we are forced to read someone's words; a certain level of comprehension could be assumed.
So next time you get a "tex-mex" from me know that above all else; I was thinking about you fondly, and that while I value you for all your disgusting human failings (I have a shit-ton of these); I value your time even more to NOT waste it with dead empty words and useless noise. KIT, TTYL and XOXO *(^-^)
SIDE NOTE: I'm not talking about texting while flying a plane, conducting a train, or driving an automobile. That would be plain stupid.
