Yes, I *am* chatty today

[wispfox]

Was contemplating the weird ways in which email is such a dramatic part of my daily life. Addict? I don't think so, or weekends, where I frequently go without ever reading mail wouldn't be possible. But the degree to which it *sucked* having had no access for days when my former ISP went away temporarily and with no notice was pretty amazing.

And the degree of joy I get at seeing friends' email addresses or names (mostly names, since many of them have their own incoming mail folder) is truly silly. Heck, seeing LJ comments from friends has about the similar reaction. It's really very amusing having a 'weeee! I have mail from !' reaction.

Or, the degree of unhappiness when I see email from someone where I am uncertain of something in relation to them. Or where there is outright dislike.

Even weirder, although *much* rarer in my experience, is where my email view of a person is very different from my in person view of them. I tend to get a lot more input from a person that I can interact with in person, so it's a rather lot strange when that impression is wildly different than my in person one. Makes me nervous.

I think the most interesting thing about email and how it has affected my life is that email is a *large* part of how I finally started to figure out how to interact with people. And to be brave enough to talk to people about much of anything not surface-level. I *know* that the first person I ever asked out (also the first person I ever dated) was over email. (Yep - I was even more shy than I am now, but I was, and am, still usually the one who asks. Something about not doing well with not sharing revalations relating to people with the people in question.)

It gave me time to find words for things. It also forced me to figure out how to verbalize more clearly than I tended to do in person (still true - I'm much poorer at speaking than writing, at least about things which are not surface-level).

But, it also meant that, at least in some cases, I would use email instead of talking to a person. Something I'm still trying to work on, sometimes. And while email is great for getting things out when necessary (or to communicate little nifty things I want to share), it's not so great when there are major misunderstandings or miscommunications going on. Or when there are things that *need* to be discussed - those tend to be *much* better done in person. (Or over the phone, but phones are very difficult things for me to handle for pretty much any difficult conversation. Insufficient social cues.)

There is also a major problem with the fact that, if for some reason a (currently-applicable) difficult conversation starts over email, there're delays. And there's (at least for me) a pretty strong level of anxiety when I see a reply to a message containing difficult conversations. And having *non* difficult conversations with someone when there is a difficult conversation pending isn't much easier.

Determining which conversations should (or should not) occur over email seems to be a much less confusing thing for me than it used to be. Not perfect, of course. But much less confusing. Initially, when I first was doing email and trying to interact with people, it was my default for *everything* (except breakups and fairly trivial conversations), even with people who were nearby. This, as one may imagine, was bad. I adjusted that rather quickly.

More recently, all difficult conversations, even with people located near me, tended to happen via email. I think the delay factor for currently-applicable difficult conversations finally got across to me though, and now my preference is strongly for having such conversations in person. Don't know how well I do with this, though, since I'm not *in* any relationships of any type at this point where there are currently-applicable difficult conversations combined with local accessability. (I keep saying 'currently-applicable' because things relating to my past tend to have much less delay-factor and 'do I really want to read the reply' stress associated with them)

Really, there's only one person where there are even any currently-applicable difficult conversations pending, and I'm still not sure what to do with that. Is one of those things where I think of him as a friend, but am almost certain he wants more and hasn't quite gotten his head around the disparity yet enough to just accept it (even though he seems to think that he has). If he were anywhere nearby, I'd see what an in-person conversation might do.

He's not. So I'm still waffling on how to deal with this. Especially considering my energy level for particularly stressful conversations is *not* high (yes, I know - I'm really talkative for someone with a low energy level!). And considering that, if I let myself just give up on the conversation for a while, other conversations are going to reduce. That's just how I work.

But yeah. Email is most certainly my friend. But, I think I'm finally starting to break out of using it as a crutch. Which pleases me, simultaneous with scaring the shit out of me. I'm not *good* with in-depth, probably emotionally charged, in-person conversations, due largely to lack of practice, I suspect. (Well, that and having been unintentionally trained while growing up to believe that confrontations were never useful or worth the effort)

We shall just see how well I do should there be need. Both with bringing things up, and with being able to stay reasonably coherent. Has not happened since I finally internalized that some things are Just Not Good For Email (I knew it, and am pretty sure I was trying, but did not *understand* until relatively recently). So, I get to be completely theoretical. Yay, theory!