Communication

When I was in college, one of my creative essays was about how things has changed with the advent of instant electronic communication. I'm thinking about it again now, especially because my communication skills with others has been lacking so much, and why? What is my excuse when I can shoot someone a text, an email, a phone call, a web-call, all with the click of a button (or a few buttons)?

I'm relying heavily on conversations I've had with older people about what it was like before all this fancy-shmancy technology, back when people used things like the US Postal Service and landlines. My parents wrote each other letters when my dad was working down the Cape and my mom was stuck in Buffalo. That's right- LETTERS. When's the last time anyone has written a letter? And I mean a real letter, sent in the mail with a stamp. People still write letters today, but most of the time it's because they're just too chicken to say what they need to say out loud. Example: people who are trying to win back an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend (usually at night, when it's raining) and don't want to be rejected right to their face, or people who are lazy and would rather tell their coach in the written form that they deserve more playing time (that ones for my sister, a college volleyball coach). It seems that today, letters are reserved for the cowardly, the people who consciously choose not to say things out loud. The more I think about it, the more I've come to the conclusion that ALL textual communication can be used by those who are scared- scared of rejection, or of having to respond without proofreading their thoughts, or simply having to interact face-to-face, voice-to-voice. People use emails to complain to a boss, text messages to break off a relationship (talk about COWARDLY... and lame), webchats to search for new crushes. But given the platform for true expression- just using your voice- we tend to freeze up.

Just now, a cashier flirted with my roommate (I'm blogging in Breugger's Bagels) by taking $7 off her total rather than just telling her he wanted a date with her. Granted, he was about 40 and a creepshow, but still, he went far out of his way to avoid just talking to her.

We don't write letters anymore, but we've become reliant on these new forms of text to fuel our relationships. We've grown into a generation of subtlety, a generation that obsesses over whether to use one period or three, whether using the word "fine" instead of "okay" is the right decision. Our friends proofread our love lives and our parents do the same for our professional lives.

Back in the olden times (15 years ago), letters were a necessity, not a cop-out. They were something that had to be done because long distance calls cost more than just minutes out of a monthly allowance.

I'm all about bringing letters back, the real kind of letters that are romantic and sentimental and worth keeping around in a special letter box along with an engraved sterling silver letter opener. I can't tell you how many times I've had to put back letter stationary kits with wax, a monogrammed stamper, and paper made from the bark of 100 year old trees. Usually, what makes me put those things back on the clearance rack (always on clearance because, again, who sends letter, especially ones sealed with wax?) is the fact that I don't really know how to write letters. What happens when you send a letter to someone and they call you before it arrives? ("I'm sorry, please call me back after you've read the funny anecdotes and related questions I've sent via snail mail") What do you even talk about? Half the things I usually talk about look so uninteresting when put on paper. I've only gotten as far as greeting cards, which are allowed to be silly and pointless (ask my friends who have received a card from me).

I'm wondering if it's because vocal communication is so much easier now. I could write a letter about it, but why? Why do that when I can call up that person and give them the benefit of voice inflections, of pauses, of that indescribable tone added when a person talking is smiling? I think I'll stick to that, rather than writing it all done, stuffing it in an envelope, and sealing it with an S-imprinted wax circle.