Misunderstandings in text messages

Text messages are a bit like tiny emotional grenades that we joyfully throw at each other all day long. It's a universal phenomenon that turns our conversations into misunderstandings worthy of a sitcom. It's convenient, modern...and full of traps. A message sent too quickly, another read sideways, and suddenly, everyone starts to interpret, imagine, and invent disaster scenarios. The problem is not the text. It's everything it doesn't have.

A text message is three words without tone, without eye contact, without a smile. No raised eyebrows, no little laugh, not even a sigh. The brain hates emptiness, so it makes something up. And it makes it badly. Very badly. The message says one thing, the reader another, and the responder comes up with a third version. We ended up in a trilogy. 

An "okay" becomes a declaration of war. An endpoint turns into an aggressive passive threat. A lack of response is experienced as a betrayal. And a "we'll talk about it later sounds like an attempt to escape through a window. The nuances disappear, automatic correctors get involved, and suddenly a banal message becomes a masterpiece of absurdity. Texting is theatre without a set, without costumes, without rehearsals. We guess more than we understand, we interpret more than we read, and we get angry over sentences that never existed.

Texting is the greatest sociological experiment of our time. My children, my grandchildren, our friends, our relatives...no one escapes it. A misplaced word, a badly chosen emoji, and it's off to an international diplomatic crisis. All this for an "OK" sent between two red lights. It's like asking a blind person to paint a realistic portrait: he will try, but the result may be surprising.

The text message is naked as a worm. So, everyone knits it an emotional sweater based on their current mood. And then there's the autocorrect, that little prankster that turns Till I come see you into : Till I  come see you die. We wanted to send a cute message but ended up with a psychological thriller. Then we wonder why we get, "Uh...everything okay at your place?" " Real communication takes time, patience and sometimes a good phone call. When a text starts to be a Chinese puzzle, it's better to pick up the phone. The voice conveys what written words forget, and at least we avoid starting a world war over a single period.