On Sunday mornings, when there’s no new snow to be had, I like to drink coffee, write to far-flung friends and read the newspaper, though occasionally I get drawn into the gossip and goings-on of my colleague/friend/roommate/landlord, and I usually come out of the far end of these rambling discussions and digressions enlightened, if not psychically exhausted.
Among the heavier themes and threads of these conversations is the ongoing debate about text messaging and intergender relations, a topic that receives, sometimes unfairly, a tremendous gravitas of which it is undeserving. However, on other days, it is significant and deserves some attention. Headway is made and a feeling of understanding permeates the room.
In brief, the debate involves appropriate response-time, factors dictating interpretation of sometimes vague and oblique messages, which are lacking in non-textual data (body language, facial expression, tone of voice, etc.), and the all-too-familiar power games that boys and girls play with each other early in8212;and well into8212;a relationship.
You get a text from your latest love interest (or lust interest) and immediately the cognitive wheels start cranking as you figure out how to proceed. How soon do I text back? Do I play it cool? How cool is too cool? What should I say? Should I be flirty, überflirty, nonchalant or aloof? Are emoticons OK? (My philosophy on emoticons, briefly: Just Say No.) Should I be sarcastic and witty? Or will that translate as weird false earnestness and doofiness? How ironic can I be before even I forget if I’m being ironic? Can I send a racy picture text? (My philosophy on racy picture texts: good to receive, iffy to send.)
To be sure, guys and girls have never been on the same wavelength in terms of communication. There was never a golden age of beauty, love and honest intersexual communication. Humans are social creatures, and our communicative systems have been honed through thousands of generations, each of which managed to put aside their gender disagreements and go forth and procreate8212;which brings us to today.
But what’s happened with texting seems like a pyrrhic victory: To avoid the hard work of one-on-one relationships, we’ve harnessed a technology, supposed to make communicating easier, that itself entails even harder work. Sure, Ozzie Osbourne makes a great, humorous corporate commercial shill for the efficiency of text, but other than Ozzie, who really mumbles that incoherently (besides Alan Greenspan and Bob Dylan)? And how does Ozzie get the phone numbers of the coffee jerk and the cab driver, anyway? The shrink’s number I would guess is on speed dial, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense.
Our Sunday salon adjourned with some progress in understanding that the disagreements that develop into hours-long intertextual spats could easily be resolved with something as simple as a five-minute phone call, which, if you recall, was what we did in the old days when we wanted to talk with someone who wasn’t near.
As always, more research is needed. Technology is not in and of itself good or bad, but the application of it within society has consequences, which can be judged. Texting is here to stay, until it too is replaced by whatever’s coming next. Guys and girls will continue to misunderstand and miscommunicate, and the whole wide world’s gonna keep on spinning.
But to make things a little bit easier8212;because, after all, life is hard8212;the next time you want to talk to your partner (of the week or of your life), pick up the phone. Can you hear me now?
James Sewell
Phil Cannon