As someone who regularly stutters, stumbles, bumbles, and tumbles over trying to form words with her mouth, especially when in the presence of another human being, technology is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I'm infinitely better at writing than talking. This explains why people like my blog more than they like the actual me.

Need to tell someone off? Send them a Facebook message! Is that not soap boxy enough for you? Post it publicly to their wall! Cryptic diary entries are a thing of the past. Why spend all that time penning about your life's angst when you can just vaguely tweet about it? Are you looking for that perfect way to say "I care enough about you to remember that you exist, but not enough to actually talk to you"? There's this wonderful invention called the text message!

The world is sunshine and rainbows and gigabytes and pixels.

However, even if it is technological communication, it's still communication. People are still involved with communication. In this case, there are going to be some flaws.

The major drawback with talking electronically is that it's impersonal. After a while, there hardly feels like any difference between talking to your friends and talking to Cleverbot. It's all too easy to forget that there is a person on the other end, a live person with opinions and standards and feelings and stuff. As a result, we do things that would never ever fly in real life interaction.

Here are some things that I have observed exclusively in technological communication, and how they would translate in 3D socialization. (3D Socialization sounds like another really bad premise for a 3D movie.)

1. Instant messaging availability never means what you think it means.

IM clients have this handy little feature that allows you to be able to tell if a certain friend of yours is available to talk or not. In my head, this is how that should work:

Online: I'm rearing and ready to talk to!
Away: I'm away from my computer. I probably won't respond if you try to contact me. Because I'm away.
Busy: I'm preoccupied with something really important, like curing cancer or splitting an atom. Don't disturb me.
Offline: I'm in no way, shape, or form associated with my IM client right now.

This is what it actually means:

Online: I forgot to put myself in "away" mode.
Away: I forgot to put myself in "online" mode.
Busy: I don't have the balls to remove people that annoy me off of my buddy list, so I'm perpetually in "busy" mode, avoiding them.
Offline: I'm in invisible mode! I will instant message you as if I have been resurrected from the dead!

I'm petrified to instigate chat conversations because my friends expect me to be psychic or Hermione Granger or something.

Put in real-life perspective:

Your friend is sitting at a table. You walk over to them and greet them. Whenever you attempt to say anything to them, they respond, "I am away from this table right now."

2. Electronic goodbyes matter, too.

After studying quantum physics to find out that you and your friend are both online at the same time, you engage them in conversation. You know, conversation. That thing where you are both saying things to one another. After a questionable gap in this conversation, you look at your buddy list. That's when you notice.

They're no longer online.

Whatever happened to, "Hey. My person is going to leave the computer now. I just thought I'd let you know, so you don't wait up for my response that is never going to come or anything."? Even if there are lulls in conversation, or you both get distracted, it's still common courtesy. You say goodbye to that old high school friend you awkwardly engage in Wal*Mart even though you have nothing to talk about. This shouldn't be any different.

Put in real-life perspective:

You're talking to your friend. Suddenly, they get up and walk away from you, with no explanation whatsoever.

3. The many complexities of text messaging.

Actually, there's just one complexity: People suck at it.

The whole premise of texting is that you can carry all of your friendships in your pocket. Your friends can and will try to talk to you any day, at any time. There is rarely any urgency involved. You can reply to them at your utmost leisure. That's the blessing, as well as the curse.

You see, people are a bit too leisurely and not enough "utmost" when it comes to text messaging. People have busy lives. Or at least I assume that they do, because I'm between jobs and have the free time to be on top of my social life like some sort of ninja wizard. If it takes a couple hours to respond, that's okay. If it takes more than just a couple, that's also okay. That's about how long a work day is.

However, a full day? Multiple days? Never? What kind of person pours 10% of their earnings into a cell phone bill and then never checks it for messages?

The excuses are awesome, when you actually have the benefit of hearing them. "I'm so sorry I didn't respond to you! My phone was stolen by goblins, and I had thirteen hours to meander through this super complicated maze to get it back!" "Oh, really? That sounds an awful lot like Labyrinth." "...Yeah..."

Some situations are easy to explain. If you impale your friend with texts and they never respond, the truth is they probably don't like you. Other situations? Not so easy. There have been times when I've gotten a text from a friend, and I responded in a timely manner like a normal person. However, no response. Never a response. Was this person not holding their cell phone in their hands three minutes ago? The only scenario I can think of where that can actually happen is if they chuck their phone across a field, and then start sprinting in the opposite direction.

Put in real-life perspective:

You ask your friend a question, and they answer your question three days later. Either that your they talk to you next week, never acknowledging the fact that you asked them a question at all.


Yet, regardless of all of this, I would still deal with a confusing IM conversation over blundering through a two hour phone call.

Hello! I'm going to die one day, and so are you! (Whitnicism: the Feel-Good Blog of 2011.)

For starters, here are the three main components to understanding me:

1. I'm an incredibly anxious person.
2. Anxiety causes me to over think everything. And I mean everything.
3. Over thinking allows me to come to weird epiphanies, seemingly out of absolutely nowhere.

I've found, unsurprisingly, that these three ideas are hard for the majority of people to grasp individually, nevertheless combine and interweave together. (Don't feel too bad. I'm me, and I don't know what my brain is doing half the time.) However, that is the only way I could think of to explain how I went from relaxing after a busy weekend to pondering my mortality.

Last night there I was, rag curls in my hair, playing multiplayer iPod Touch Solitaire against a person who was too good at Solitaire to have any kind of social life. Then the thought came: 'Whitney. As far as anyone knows, you have one life to live on this Earth. And you're using this precious time tying rag curls and getting your ass handed to you on a platter via online Solitaire. Are these the moments you're going to tell your grandchildren about?'

Then I had an overwhelming urge to burst through the front door of my house and start living as much life as I could possibly find. I pondered everything from buying a plane ticket to Europe to finding a stranger to make out with. Unfortunately, it was midnight. I'm also broke, and throwing myself at the first attractive male I find while wearing rag curls isn't a much better story for the grandchildren. "And that, whippersnappers, was the night your father was conceived." Feeling like I had exhausted all of my options, I found myself a more evenly matched opponent on Solitaire.

As John Mayer put it in a song, I'm going through a "quarter-life crisis." Don't get me wrong. In my short life, I've gotten to do some pretty awesome things. I've been places. I've met people. I even fell in love that one time, even if it was with the undeniably wrong person. There are so many things left to be done, however, that I don't even know where to get started. I realized that the time to do these things is now, while I'm still young and fancy free.

I began to mentally compile my bucket list. It included what I considered to be the essentials: Figure out what I want to do with my life, and then go to school for that thing. Travel everywhere, a lot. Fall in love again, hopefully with the undeniably right person this time. Probably make him my husband. Have children with said husband that look vaguely like me, and hopefully act even more vaguely like me. You know, the basics.

However, there are a few things I've always wanted to do that are a bit...outlandish. As I daydreamed, each new bucket list item became more ludicrous than the last. Here are some examples. These are mostly unrealistic expectations that I've drawn from watching movies.

1. Be Involved in an Over-the-Top Introduction

I've always wanted to enter a room full of dozens, if not thousands, of people highly anticipating my arrival. My original plan that would have fulfilled this goal was to be a guest on Oprah. I'm not even a huge fan of Oprah. I just think I have a great Oprah announcing name. ("Whitneeeey HowAAAAAARD!")

With my Oprah dreams dashed, I must set my sights elsewhere. The current vision involves anything from a large gymnasium to a small stadium. My arrival will be announced via microphone, megaphone, or some other voice projecting device that more than likely starts with "m" and ends in "phone." There are balloons, metallic confetti, and/or streamers. There is either a marching band or that song they use to pump you up for basketball games is blaring through the speakers. I dance down the aisles toward a stage, and there are plenty of high fives to go around.

My only flaw with this plan is why I would be there in the first place, and how such a grand announcement for me of all people would be necessary. I'm an awkward public speaker (or public do anything-er) and I tend to avoid large crowds. As soon as the announcement is over, my mind draws a blank over what happens next. I assume I just stand there awkwardly for about thirty seconds and then leave the stage to an outro of "We Are the Champions" by Queen.

2. Have Many Excuses to Wear a Pretty Dress Somewhere

I don't know if this is to compensate for the few high school dances I went to, or if I've seen too many Disney movies, but I always welcome excuses to put on a dress and look pretty. I got to do that very thing just last weekend, as a matter of fact. I seem to lack the everyday opportunity to wear a formal, which is why I still feel unfulfilled in this aspect of my life.

I've imagined this scenario in several ways, but it always has these three elements in common: 1) I'm wearing a pretty dress, and I look smokin'. 2) There is a big ol' staircase. and 3) There is a really cute guy waiting somewhere along the stairs. He'll give me a look that says, "I had no idea how I subconsciously felt about you before this moment, but I'm pretty sure I want to marry you based solely on how you look in formal wear." Then we consummate our love in a huge room with a pool table in it. Because pool tables are classy.

For a film parallel, think a combination between Anastasia and Titanic. Mostly Anastasia.

3. Discover I Have Magical Powers

As many children do, I had imaginary friends. Their names were Jonathan, Missy, and Lou Lou, to be exact. Occasionally others made an appearance, such as Jessica (she was snooty, wore fur coats, and she was a major beeotch) and Reflection (who, as sad as it is to admit, was my freaking reflection.)

Instead of just materializing these imaginary friends from nowhere like a normal person, I had to create an elaborate back story in my seven year-old mind. Every once in a while, I would envision myself finding a pair of slightly rainbow tinted contact lenses. This is ironic because a) contact lenses are nearly impossible to find once dropped and b) I wear glasses just to avoid contacts. Rather than thinking, 'Gross. These contacts have been sitting on the ground for who knows how long. That's unsanitary,' I would put them on. They would enable me to see an entire world of Invisible People that secretly coexist with we Visible People. They rode on top of our cars. They sat in empty chairs and slept in unattended beds. They watched us do stupid things and wanted to offer their Invisible People wisdom, but they couldn't, because no one could see them but me with the magical contact lenses.

It's a good thing this was just my imagination, because this idea creeps me out nowadays. On the bright side, Jonathan and I fell in imaginary love. I think this is how my trend of fancying guys whose names start with J (especially guys named "Jonathan") found its origins.

Analyzing my younger self now, I think this reflected a desire to feel special, to do something that my peers couldn't. I still have this desire every once in a great while, although I cope now by trying to refine my talents and strengths rather than seeing invisible people. (I'm still a slightly lost cause, though, because I still yearn for a Hogwarts acceptance letter.) However, I haven't lost the opinion that having some sort of superhuman ability would still be awesome. I'd love to be able to read minds, or read lightning fast, or shoot spaghetti lasers out of my eyeballs, or something.


Yep. You're right. This entire spiel came quite literally from playing Solitaire. Welcome to my insane membrane.