Or, thoughts on the emotional roller coaster that is the act of watching the "typing" ellipsis dots in a text message exchange...
1.) F#$!.
2.) If anyone ever has to scratch his or her head in wonder as to why "so many young people are neurotic today" I will clarify at least a portion of that confusion by illuminating the following: like it or not, much of modern communication now takes place via text message. There are no traditional visual or physical cues or signals therein to indicate tone, physical state (tired, depressed, drunk, what have you), or to show even that the recipient has "heard" what you said and is either formulating a reply or ignoring you completely...no signal, that is, save three little grey dots that sort of pulse at you, indicating that someone has at least begun typing, allowing you the slimmest of flickers of information: someone has pressed a finger to at least one key. Me, I have been known to watch the empty text message screen on which my blue or green text now sits, waiting and hoping (often in vain) for those damn dots to appear, so rapt is my attention to this "conversation" I want to be having that is oh so very much, for the moments and longer-than-mere-moments between messages, my sole and soul-consuming focus, while all the while signals are being sent to satellites in space...just so two humans can have a simple conversation.
*3.) F#$!.
*This last, well-chosen, oft repeated sentiment is frequently directed not at the dots themselves, nor, indeed, even at the person or persons with whom I am desperately trying to communicate. No, no. The third (and fourth. and fifth. and...so on) thought in this mental procession is, 98% of the time, directed at MY OWN DAMN SELF for a plethora of reasons, but usually boiling down to this simple truth: that which I initially wanted to say, and indeed might have said hastily and thoughtlessly in a spoken conversation has now been WRITTEN OUT IN WORDS. Words which I myself can now read back. In the voice of the person I just sent them to. Thus allowing me to imagine a thousand new tones, contexts, and assumptions that could be made based on those words that I did not, in fact, intend. This results in me having yet another minor heart attack due to fear at the sight of the previously longed-for dots, convinced as I now am that the person I am talking to has come to the correct and inevitable conclusion that I am, in fact, a horrible person and not at all witty or funny, not worth speaking to any longer, and, what is more, worthy of an almighty lettered thrashing, which he or she will dispense to dole out in all haste, hence the sudden appearance of what has now become the most frightening series of symbols in modern times: those damn, damn dots.
1.) F#$!.
2.) If anyone ever has to scratch his or her head in wonder as to why "so many young people are neurotic today" I will clarify at least a portion of that confusion by illuminating the following: like it or not, much of modern communication now takes place via text message. There are no traditional visual or physical cues or signals therein to indicate tone, physical state (tired, depressed, drunk, what have you), or to show even that the recipient has "heard" what you said and is either formulating a reply or ignoring you completely...no signal, that is, save three little grey dots that sort of pulse at you, indicating that someone has at least begun typing, allowing you the slimmest of flickers of information: someone has pressed a finger to at least one key. Me, I have been known to watch the empty text message screen on which my blue or green text now sits, waiting and hoping (often in vain) for those damn dots to appear, so rapt is my attention to this "conversation" I want to be having that is oh so very much, for the moments and longer-than-mere-moments between messages, my sole and soul-consuming focus, while all the while signals are being sent to satellites in space...just so two humans can have a simple conversation.
*3.) F#$!.
*This last, well-chosen, oft repeated sentiment is frequently directed not at the dots themselves, nor, indeed, even at the person or persons with whom I am desperately trying to communicate. No, no. The third (and fourth. and fifth. and...so on) thought in this mental procession is, 98% of the time, directed at MY OWN DAMN SELF for a plethora of reasons, but usually boiling down to this simple truth: that which I initially wanted to say, and indeed might have said hastily and thoughtlessly in a spoken conversation has now been WRITTEN OUT IN WORDS. Words which I myself can now read back. In the voice of the person I just sent them to. Thus allowing me to imagine a thousand new tones, contexts, and assumptions that could be made based on those words that I did not, in fact, intend. This results in me having yet another minor heart attack due to fear at the sight of the previously longed-for dots, convinced as I now am that the person I am talking to has come to the correct and inevitable conclusion that I am, in fact, a horrible person and not at all witty or funny, not worth speaking to any longer, and, what is more, worthy of an almighty lettered thrashing, which he or she will dispense to dole out in all haste, hence the sudden appearance of what has now become the most frightening series of symbols in modern times: those damn, damn dots.
