Susan Senator

I think that email, I.M., and txt msging are all very satisfying to use in their own way, but they also have their limitations and there is an etiquette involved. The etiquette is different from face-to-face or phone conversations. I am fascinated with various forms of interacting and I wonder what it is that makes the differences.

Take the difference between a driving encounter and a face-to-face encounter. In our cars we are often by ourselves or just a loved one or two, and we feel completely sealed off from others. I think many of us (I am including me, unfortunately) kind of become someone else behind the wheel. I swear a lot more than in real life, for one thing. It seems that being closed off behind metal and glass I feel stronger and safer and yet, at the same time, more defensive and offensive. I assume the worst of people; someone who is going too slow is perhaps doing it to teach me a lesson? Someone who is tailgating me is giving me a message to go faster? I almost never think, “Oh, she is lost, so she is going too slow.” Or “He is nearsighted; or has no sense of distance; or he’s merely trying to read my bumper sticker.” Or is unaware of what he is doing. These days I am so aware of my bitchy driving habits (because my children and husband seem to tense up in the car when I drive) that I am trying harder to breathe, breathe, breathe.

In terms of email and IM, I find I love using email but I hate IM. I hate the intrusive immediacy of IM. You hardly get a chance to collect your thoughts when they have sent yet another under-capitalized message. Sometimes a whole new chain of conversation has started on their end and you’re still answering the first. It can get very confusing. Also, if you are silent for a while, they say, “Hello?” which always seems a little sad to me. Sometimes I’m just thinking! But the etiquette is such that you have to say, “hold on…” or something like that.

And how do you end an IM session? Sometimes the other person is deep into their thing with you and you realize Jon Stewart is on or your sweetheart is going up to bed and you absolutely must go to sleep at the same time or one will wake up the other. So many times, the other person is just chock full of I-Mergy and I am trying to break in, the way you can in a normal face-to-face conversation. One person I know was so oversensitive on IM that the minute I paused to think he would say, “Are u there?” And by the way, I also hate the abbreviations. I am too old and cranky to do that kind of stuff, I guess.

Recently Max showed me how to txt in my phone. Now that is really energy/time consuming! But I was having a “conversation” with someone and he stopped in the middle! The next day I asked him what was up and he said he had fallen asleep. In the middle of txting! Not even a gdnght. Is that rude, or is that the nature of txting? I have to ask Max.

GTG