Message In a Bottle

I feel like I should apologize for the lack of posts here recently. I’ve thought about writing something just to be writing something, and I’ve sat in front of my computer with my chin in my hand waiting for inspiration to sit down with me, but nothing has come, and quite frankly, I’ve had nothing to say. I’ve been on vacation, mentally: I’ve been trying not to overthink things, and to use my senses more. I’m overly cerebral, and I’m trying out being more “in my body”. So I havenn’t been reading the blogs that inspire me, or analyzing the thoughts that come to me or the things that happen around me. Mostly I’ve been “in the moment”, and that’s been interesting.

But it doesn’t make very good blog material. Nobody cares much about that.

I have been communicating with the world though. Last week I discovered how to send a text message on my phone. (It’s true. And even though I’m 30, not 80, I seem to be the last person to start using “new thechnologies”. I don’t even have a Flickr account, something which I intend to remedy. In fact, one thing I want to start doing is paying more attention to being modern with my technology. How can I ever hope to be a brilliant media designer if I don’t pay attention to how media are used today?)

I sent several text messages before I realized that my messages weren’t always being received. At first it was a minor annoyance, but it grew into a Code Orange anxiety. Are my messages being received and ignored, or are you just not getting them? Should I resend it? But what if they were received but being ignored? Will I seem pushy or needy if I send it again?

Sending text messages felt like putting an important note in a bottle and tossing it out to sea. Sometimes it felt like writing the only good poem I’ve ever written, and stuffing it in an envelope addressed, “Someone Who May Appreciate It”. What sense does that make? Better to write the poem and be the only one who appreciates it, or send it off into the ether, with only hope left by my side?

Perhaps that’s a bit dramatic. But the anxiety I felt over the stupid text messages was real. I expressed this concern to a friend who said, simply, “Call customer support.”

I do not enjoy talking on the phone. I don’t know why. I suspect part of it is that I have no facial clues as to what is happening on the other end, and I am expected to make immediate responses to the conversation anyway. At least in text communication, I have time to figure out what is being said and formulate a reply. On the telephone I don’t have that luxury. So I was reluctant to call customer support. But eventually, the text messaging fiasco wore on me enough that I did, indeed, call customer support. And they fixed the problem.

But there is something marginally interesting here. I hear all the time that “design is about communication”. (It isn’t; design is about making something intuitive and delightful to use. These people specifically mean “media design”, but rarely say so. I think that’s a dangerous trap, actually. It’s too easy to see your own aspect of your field as the totality of it, and when that happens, its too easy to remain removed from advances in your field in toto and to be moved by them.) Neverthless, media design is about communication, and clearly writing is about communication. Obviously communication is important to me. Why did text messaging and talking on the phone put me off so much? What about the message in the bottle was so intimidating that I preferred silence over these communications in the first place?

The telephone thing is harder to explain and has more to do with personal foibles and irrational phobias than anything else. But the text message thing is very real. It has to do with communication as the basis for any relationship. When we feel something important, whatever it is, we express it. We write about it, paint about it, sing about it, talk about it. And when those feelings have to do with other people, if a relationship is to form (or be maintained) around those feelings, it is important that those feelings are expressed to that person. Communication between people in a right relationship isn’t merely a nice-to-have; it’s the very foundation the relationship is built upon. For people like me, who are sensitive about speaking of emotions, those conversations or expressions of affection come at a permium, and the fear of those emotions not being requited is very powerful. And sometimes it isn’t even a matter of what is said, but that anything was said at all. Becuase in sending a random text message what I’m really saying is, “I’m thinking about you.” I didn’t say anything important in those lost messages, but I said something. I made an indication of my affection and modest desire, and when those messages were not returned it was disheartening.

When I was in junior high school I had a little boyfriend named Barnaby (quite true, though very unfortunate for him.) Over the summer, Barnarby and I sent each other letters. One day, I had gone shopping and found a card that reminded me of him. I scribbled a note on it that says, “I was thinking of you,” and mailed it off. Two weeks later, I received an angry letter back saying, “I waited two weeks to hear from you and this is all I get?!” It put me off sending letters like that ever again. (And ended our friendship.) A text message in a lot of ways is just like that card. What if Barnaby was right? What if people don’t want to hear that they were thought of? What if, what if, what if?

I suspect that I am, once again, overthinking all of this. I’m quite sure that the people who received my random text messages were tickled at having received them. After all, these are friends, people I care about and who presumably care for me. These are people that I share my affections with freely when we are together. We share laughter, frustrations, and coffee. And yet…and yet, there is still a tremor of trepidation each time I hit send, casting that message in a bottle out to sea. The fear, I guess, that it will go forever unaddressed.

Tags: text messaging, communication, relationships, friendship, anxiety

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