The nominees for Best Method of Communication Between Two People are:
A) Speaking, face to face
B) Instant messaging
C) Telephone
D) Lambada, the forbidden dance
And the winner is...
INSTANT MESSAGING!
Yes! Woooo, instant messaging! You kick ass!
Man, I really and truly do love instant messaging. It is my favorite form of communication these days. It's Mike (that's me!) at his best.
I find all other forms of communication to be flawed. Let's review.
Face to face speaking? That crap is a nightmare. First, there's the body language aspect of it that totally eludes me. When my wife puts her hand on her hip, does it mean that I'm a good husband or that she hates me? Or is she just copping a quick self-feel? Indecipherable.
Then, there's whole issue of eye contact. I AM A COMPUTER PROGRAMMER AND I DO NOT LIKE LOOKING YOU IN THE EYE. Are you trying to peer into my soul? Christ on a crutch, quit looking at me! And, if you're a woman with breasts, am I really supposed to be able to look you in the eye? That's patently absurd. Only magicians can do that.
Finally, it's too quick! No backspace to retract the ethnic slur that sounded ironic in my head. No adequate time to come up with a rhyme for testicle. No chance to construct a believably human facade.
Without a doubt, face to face speaking is unmanageable.
Phone calls? Well, they still have the immediacy problem that face-to-face speaking does. Just not enough time to respond with a sympathetic/humorous comment. Plus, I'm probably making online Scrabble moves, or watching TV while I'm talking to you, so you're really only getting 10% of my attention. It's a lose-lose proposition.
The Lambada, the forbidden dance? That's pretty good, but forbidden.
So, we're left with the Cadillac of conversation, instant messaging! I can copy and paste humorous anecdotes from one window to another! I can pause for a few seconds before responding to your fat-pitch setup comment! I can be the Mike I always wanted to pretend to be!
Congratulations, instant messaging. Your ASCII sensibilities rock my world.
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9 comments:
Agreed. It's easier to aspire to the wit of Oscar Wilde with time to think.
Come to think of it, most of his best lines are culled from carefully written plays and essays. Altho' there's no denying he wins "Best Famous Last Words". Perhaps we should consider having Yahoo Messenger open on our deathbeds.
I'm the same way. I would communicate by IM only if I could get away with it!
Nomax, so I googled around and found quite a few different "last word" quotes attributed to Mr. Wilde. I guess it was something along the lines of "Either the wallpaper goes or I do".
Leesa, let's put our foot (feet) down and demand that world use messengers to communicate with us! Fight the power!
the thing is, even though you're making a joke of it, it's true.
i'm pretty sure that at some, not too distant, point in my life, i will refuse to communicate any other way.
and from there it's but a tiny step to communicating only with alice ( http://www.alicebot.org/ ) and cutting humans completely out of the equation.
hmm, maybe i'm on to something!!
I also need a few extra seconds for actual wit, instead of just general charm, which is what you get from me in a face to face (or aimed at boob) conversation.
Dolface, yes! Joking and true! You and I should vow to only speak via IM from now on. When we drive somewhere, we'll do so in silence.
Tasty, I'm glad it's not just me. I just want to call "time out" sometimes to ponder the correct response.
So this made me think of the french phrase "esprit d'escalier" or "staircase wit" - the retort you think of too late as you are leaving (the literary salon, presumably). In looking that up, I came upon this quote:
"...this affliction, esprit de l'escalier, is one of the principal reasons why people become writers" (Simon Barnes)
from http://www.wordsmith.org/words/esprit_d_escalier.html
But here's a thought: Do you think that IM makes you wittier in person? Is it like working out? Certainly being well read and writing sharpen the mind and broaden the vocabulary and palette of idioms. Or is it "pallet" if you get them in bulk?
nomax, french quotations, Oscar Wilde references, word puns? Clearly you are reading the wrong blog. Maybe you should check out someoneSmarterThanMike.blogspot.com. That's the blog for you, man.
Anyone up for mobile IM? (I am posting this on my mobile phone, btw.)
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