Empathetic feelings are less when reading a written word than when talking to someone where you can see facial expressions and hear tonal inflections.
Originally Posted by kittyloveratx
______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ ____________________
Those who have the time to read, please bear with me. Some are going to think this too academic an exercise, and they may be right.
I quoted the above in my earlier post (and a bit more of it) but this is the part I ask you to consider for the moment.
"Empathetic feelings are less when reading a written word than when talking to someone where you can see facial expressions and hear tonal inflections."
______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ ____________________
I HATE TEXTING. Why? Because It takes forever to type the words (even using T9), wait for a reply, fashion a response, and so on and so on, back and forth. It is ok for simple things like "are you on the way?" or "want to go to Bull Creek at 4?" or simple questions like that. Works pretty well for simple statements like "Be ready because I am going to fuck your brains out tonight", but I digress. For me, for the most part anyway, I prefer a good old-fashioned phone call. Here is one example why:
Last summer I was hanging out with a guy who LOVED to text. No matter how many times I told him (and texted him) "I hate texting", he persisted. This was not a good thing. He was funny and mostly pleasant in person but he turned into an evil rat bastard when he texted! Well, it turned out that my cell phone was not displaying any of his cute little emoticons--the ones that were supposed to let me know he was kidding or being sarcastic or silly or whatever. And it turned out he used these a lot. Ugh! He thought he was being playful, and I thought he was being a jerk. Or more accurately, the messages
HE SENT were playful. But without the emoticons, the messages
I RECEIVEDwere often pretty damn rude. (He would agree with this statement.)
Given the statement about empathy I quoted above, why should I presume that my written words, posted here, are understood by the readers? Not as regards substance, but as regards my attitude as I write the words and therefore the intent behind them? If I were
speaking the words to you, my facial expressions and tonal inflections would help ensure that you understand the meaning behind the words. Without these, what are the odds that we are really communicating effectively?
Hopefully some of you will remember a thread from a little while back--it was about the voices we give to others as we read their words in our minds. (Well, I didn't actually post in that thread but found it interesting.) Because the reader does not know the writers' true voice, they created a voice or characterization which matched their impressions of the person behind the written words.
Ok, I decided to use the search feature.
The thread was called "Audio commentary for well known posters" and 24 different people chimed in with their thoughts. Here are just a few:
Because of my aggressive posting style, several men have been shocked when they heard me speak and found out I didn't have a deep voice. Another admitted that he was surprised to find out I wasn't ugly and old -- because he thought only hags posted like me. No joke.
Originally Posted by Sensual Sophia
....This thread is so spot on.....
Do y'all actually read the threads out loud in the voice you imagine? There's one poster that I always hear Elmer Fudd and I read the posts out loud in that voice....sad but true.... My cats think I'm insanse as I'll read a thread in 10 different voices LOL
Originally Posted by dammit
Kosher will always be the Geico gecko to me....
Originally Posted by Booth
I posted it in another thread, but I always hear Rorschach doing a voice over when I read Whispers' posts. And sixxbach, for some reason, I imagine Strong Bad. When you rant, I hear, "Trogdoooor!" in my head.
Sophia, I imagine you having a soft, sensual, 1-900 kinda voice.
Originally Posted by txtraveler07
I somehow pictured spaceman as an old man. Boy was I wrong. What a handsome man you are. Charming too.
Originally Posted by BritneyBangs
for a few select posters i hear the adult voices from charlie brown---it is another version of the ignore button for me.
Originally Posted by missi hart
for some reason i think of whispers as darth vader............. ABT as the donald.... trump that is!
Originally Posted by sixxbach
darth vader huh........ I can live with that....
There are a few ladies around here I definitely put a Rosie O'Donnel voice to..... One guy that will go unnamed is a PeeWee Herman...... and another that will go unnamed conjures up Mike Tyson every time he throws his weight around...
Originally Posted by Whispers
Clearly, the characters imagined to be reading the posts impact the interpretation of what the words
really mean and reflect the presumed mindset of the writer.
If you read my posts from this morning, did you imagine me calm or angry or otherwise? How did you interpret my motivation for posting? I have asked myself this question regarding several posters in the thread, retrospectively. I read people pretty well, actually, yet I wonder how accurate my interpretations would prove to be.
There are, of course, myriad variables I have not attempted to address. An important obvious one is that we are not a homogeneous group in any respect. (lol--I used a word--mental image of steel pussy award
) Another is the unlikelihood that all posts are given due consideration (e.g. empathy).
And so I ask, how effectively has this group communicated in this thread? (Defining "group" very broadly.) Given the variables and constraints, and assuming the topic is substantive, is it realistic to expect effective communication is possible within such a diverse group?
Food for thinking people from a kindred spirit.
~~Casey
______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ ________
P.S. Just about to post this and have to smile. One man's "bashing" is another man's "dialogue".
P.P.S. FYI, I was not at all angry. Surprised by some comments and hoped to influence one paradigm shift. Didn't work. Frustrating, but likely a misplaced goal.
And for an added punctuation mark:
All kidding aside and speaking of irony, have you noticed that for some gents there is no happy equilibrium in posting style?
I mean if the lady's post is full of typos and silliness, they will get cut down for being uneducated and told they should stick to posting ads. If the lady proves to be intelligent and clever with prose, the same guys will then rub their forehead and talk about how the big words give them a headache and go on and on with a bitter beer rant about how the women of this board should stick to being sexy for the menfolk.
And you wonder why they charge us so much to fuck them?
Originally Posted by ANONONE