I Know You Hate Talking, But Listen…

Man, there are so many people who hate to talk.  Ever since texting creeped up on out culture, more and more people have limited the amount of actual conversation in favor of bite-size snippets of ideas, opinions and marginally related GIF’s that communicate what they want.  I don’t think I tested until 2013 or so.  I was engaged in my own form of protest.  I realized after texting a few times it can come in handy. Updates about daily bullshit, a quick shout to a friend who lives far away, or a check-in to your kid.  It’s not so bad.  But I don’t like it as a replacement for conversation because it’s not even close to being a viable solution to the real thing.

You see, I love to talk.

No shit, you say?  The guy who types up blog posts all the time and throws them into the ether?  The guy who writes books and makes about six dollars a year, yet still does it?  The guy who did open mikes and wrote a book long hand for something to do at a boring job?  That guy has something to say and tends to be a little chatty?  Hmm? 

Yes.  But that’s writing, for the most part.  That’s not talking.

When we write, we are crafting our words and editing our thoughts.  Its what writing is all about.  It’s a type of human communication, but its not the only way, and it’s not the purest way.  You’re reading this right now and I’ve already combed through the text once or twice, looking for grammatical errors, repetition, and I’ve checked for clarity.  I always miss something. Just like you when you post your bullshit on Facebook, your tweets, your tags, your Instagram descriptions, your emails.  Your texts to one another several billion times a day.  We tweak what we write in one way or another, to seem cooler or funnier or more concise.  It’s a reflection of what we say, not necessarily the truth about what we say.

Plus, most people suck at it.

I’ve been on social media for a while now and the overwhelming amount of people who can’t string a sentence together is staggering. Even more upsetting is the people who interpret the same meandering prose in different ways.  Do you know how difficult it is to convey sarcasm, even for a successful writer?  How hard it is to establish tone?  It’s an absolute chore to get a reader to feel a certain way about a certain character and it takes years of screwing it up to begin to get it just right.  How many times has someone you know misinterpreted a text you wrote?  They thought you were being insensitive, curt, mean, or pandering?  You wrote a joke that went nowhere and confused a friend’s joke for reality?  We all do.  Why?  Because conversation is for talking, not for writing.  Writing is when you collect and solidify your thoughts, then type them out.  Conversation is all the other stuff.

Friendly catching up, jokes, bullshitting around.  Deep, intense, heart-to-heart’s.  Sincere apologies and emotional breakdowns.  Emotional connection.  We can’t get these things through writing to one another. Not truly. The written transcript of a normal conversation might be hilarious gobbledygook. Even though the conversation was a good one, the actual spoken verbiage could be unclear to a third party.

 The assumption is that words are words, written or spoken, so what difference does it make?  Is that what conversation is?  Is that how you tell someone is lying or full of shit?  No.  You see them.  The body language, the stammering, the hesitancy.  Can’t you tell an expert from a pretender by their diction and confidence?  How about humor and sarcasm?  You don’t have to worry as much when you talk because your voice has tone and timber and timing.  You can also use your hands to talk to help convey your point. Phone conversations get us pretty close, but even that isn’t as prolific as texting. 

I don’t think we’re actually communicating if all we’re doing is texting.  It’s like calling it a diet when all you’ve done is switch to Diet Pepsi.  Are you looking for a world where we’re listening to one another and feeling heard?  Fire up the Zoom, use your phone as a phone.  I don’t think texting will go anywhere because it has some practical use.  But conversation is essential to the human spirit and how we feel about one another and we should try to do it face-to-face.  Even if it is nonsense, there are connections made subconsciously that we desperately need.