Sebbylite

Who would have guessed 20 years ago that we would have so many different means of communication available to us today, and yet we use so few of them to actually talk to people?

For example, the other night I was involved in a Facebook version of Scrabble with a friend, and over the course of the night we chatted through gmail and talked on the phone. There was also a way to chat through the Scrabulous application, which we used a little bit, and then over the last few days we’ve emailed and sent text messages as well. And yet I don’t feel like we actually said all that much to each other. It was mostly just telling stories, funny anecdotes, trash-talking, and general shenanigans.

If you think about it, I’m sure that you can probably also add your own version of this story to your own blog. How often do you tell your family that you love them? How often do you tell your friends why they are your friends? How often do you tell the boy/girl that you have a crush on that you do have a crush on them? How often do you tell your significant other that they are the greatest person in your world? How often do you tell your coworkers that you appreciate the team effort? For me, the answer to most of these is never.

I’m also pretty sure that I’m generalizing here - I know that I’m not the most expressive person in the world when it comes to “feelings” (blech!). But if you think about it, a lot of the comedy bits out there in terms of movies, sitcoms, etc deal with just this type of situation. How many times have you seen a movie with this scenario: guy and girl are best friends since childhood, girl finds Mr. Perfect to the chagrin of guy so guy does everything he can to discredit Mr. Perfect, but Mr. Perfect ends up being too good so guy gives up and gives his blessing to girl, girl realizes how good guy is from this one simple act and calls off the wedding to be with him? Don’t you think this all could have been avoided if they had just said something to one another before Mr. Perfect came around? I’m pretty sure that these “best friends since childhood” talked to each other every day via phone, text message, chatting, in person, etc. And I’m also pretty sure that this scenario is so prevalent because everyone has run into this situation in some form or another.

Now I’m not saying that just telling someone what you really mean is going to be the impetus to save the world. But you have to admit that it’s a good spot to start, right? And maybe putting down the phone/blackberry and actually talking with someone is how that happens.

Then again, it could just be me.