I have made a grave realization in the last few years; phones suck.
I have made another realization in the last year; computers suck.
I have uncovered yet another fact of life in the last week; e-mail sucks.
Communication? Pah. Who needs communication? Not I, I say. Not I.
You may think that without communication the world would not have progressed to its present state. You may think that communication is, at this present point in time, at least one of the building blocks for the modern American society. You may even think, as daring as it is, that the world at its present state could not function without some method of communication.
I beg to differ.
I have known ever since I was but a wee las that people scare me. Trying day after day to think of things to say in those awkward minutes of silence, or not knowing what will offend or what will make people laugh, it's all very intimidating. No matter where you go or how well you do or don't know a person, they will, at some point in time, place you into a little nook of their mind and leave you there. To be honest, I don't actually give a hoot-in-anny what people think I am or what I should be. I know that I make up my mind about people just like they do about me, and, as much as I try to ignore it, I can't. Hello human nature. I comfort myself by thinking, just as the definition of hoot-in-anny will never be known, that I will never be able to muster any sense of the human psyche. It's really not all that comforting, but that's where my great pretending skills come in.
Back in the good old days, (you remember then, right?) it was only when people mailed letters or met others face to face that they had to think of topics and continue with them in an organized fashion. Then, a little later, phones arrived. Easy enough in the beginning, almost useful, but now, now they are something more....people use them a lot, a whole lot.
Many a times have I had to think of things to say on phones, with twice the awkwardness. Why? Because ANYONE can call. Anyone can talk to you, and much of the time you find yourself too distracted to think of a reasonable reply. Or at least that's me. Even when I'm talking to friends, I find that neither of us have anything to say, or the phone is simply something to occupy our mouths why we talk, usually about an irrelevant topic. Phones scare me. They scare me almost as much as speaking face to face with someone. Almost.
I was pretty young when I discovered my fear of phone lines. It was only recently that I discovered my fear of e-mail.
I pretty much rely on e-mail for my connections with the outside world. You meet spiffy people who do spiffy things and they are usually spiffily contented. Aside from it being an ingenious idea, (the internet, that is) I found the same problem that usually occurs. With some people, I can just write freely as if I was almost comftorble with them. With others, two paragraphs turns to one, one turns to a few sentences, a few sentences turns to a few words, and by the time a few months have passed you just stop writing the person, or they stop writing you. That's how it usually turns out. Either that or nobody wants to stop writing, and so the sentences lag on and on and don't get anywhere.
So let's get this all laid out nice and pretty; phones, letters, and now even e-mail is rising in the level of awkwardness. You know longer have to just concern yourself with just thinking about things to say face to face, but also have to fear talking everywhere you go. It just seems that for every form of communication we make, something is lost, and a spell of awkwardness continues. You would think that phones and e-mail are great for people who aren't charismatic. You would think. But personalities carry over into the whole world of technology. Shucks. What about us non-social, non talkative types? We're screwed, I tell you. Scientists are against us all, us humans who are petrified of people.
Communication?