Fine, n u?

This will get me in trouble with quite a few people and to a large extent I am fine with this. I really despise the modern texting trait/fashion. I don’t hate communicating, not that I am very good at it but I definitely do not hate it. What I do hate is this idea that texting promotes whereby what should be common language skills as well as the sharing of everyday life is tossed aside in exchange for highlights of life, whether fake or real, and really poor conversation skills in a none relationship pursuit context. It is literally moving backwards. Let me break this down

Yet we insist on continuing with the lie

The generic “Hi/Hey” I can buy, after all it is simply hello. I can even buy the variations of “How are you” but the whole “Fine n u” bit, I’m just not having that. No one is fine all the time and even if you are. How is that of any benefit to the conversation? If something happened in a day that has caused some change in your day or outlook on life that is what to talk about. This whole “Fine n u” business comes from the idea that you need to give highlights of life only. The kinds of stories that will fill the other person with a proper view of you but that’s not life. Life and living is made up of the little bits and pieces that turn us into who we are, those little bits and pieces are what form conversation.

Another thing I can stand is the “and you” response to everything. You know what I mean, everything turns into a reverse question, almost boomerang like. “How are you? Fine, and you? Fine. How was your day? Good, and you?” What kind of a conversation is that? Imagine that conversation face to face with someone? That is a suicide inducing face to face conversation. What kind of a world is this turning into whereby people cannot think further than to fire back the same question. Believe it or not conversation is a two way thing. It is a giving and receiving of information. It is taking a deliberate move to find out what is going on in another person’s life and people share when you share, not when you keep firing back annoying “and you’s”

I also despise the myth of a boring life. This is a very common line these days, “I have nothing to say, my life is boring”. Life is not the number of times you have been atop Mt. Kilimanjaro or the moments you were at the beach or the times you were out with friends, life is that and so much more, It is the moments in between. It is the way you felt when you woke up and the weather was not too promising, it is the joke you enjoyed with your sibling in the morning, it is the nagging of a sister who spends hours in the bathroom. It is the book you have read and why it is fascinating or not so fascinating, it is how you felt about the goings on in the world, IT IS ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO YOU AND WITH YOU. Limiting yourself to the highlights is showing other people a lie about yourself, why do that to yourself?

Uhhhh... No it's not. Life is everything all together, the highs and the lows

I have touched a little on this but another thing is the expectance of information when you offer none. This is not a magazine interview and you are not an award winning journalist. Why should one open up to you about anything if you can open up about anything? Do you not see the fault in that logic? You expect answers constantly yet you give none. You can also never get a full picture of someone till you understand the little bits that form the whole.

I think there is a certain self-centred-ness associated with texting that has more to do with what you want than the person on the other end. “I’m asking the questions and you are not giving answers so you are boring”, when in actual fact you have a lot to do with the lack of info coming from the other end. I too have been and occasionally am guilty of such but the conscious decision has to be made to avoid such mannerisms. Such pointless conversation lines that knaw at the very fabric of what is and should be proper conversation must be put to death. Its lazy conversation, because it’s lazy it’s easy and because it is easy it takes serious conscious decision to stop it.

But thats just me.. what do I know