Thoughts on communication

[mamagotcha]

Like just about everyone else, I've fallen into the FB quicksand. I do read my LJ flist, but I've been an abysmal correspondent.

I used to love talking on the phone. I mean, for hours and hours, and it never felt like I was wasting time... it felt like an investment in the relationship with whoever was on the other end of the line.

But over the years, I've gradually moved away from my phone. I rarely call anyone except for things like getting the dryer repaired or something like that (and I look to see if there's a way to set up the appointment online first). My sister is about the only one who calls me regularly, and while I do chat with her a while, I sometimes start feeling impatient and itchy and drawn elsewhere... and I hardly ever call her. What happened to that juicy hit I used to get from gabbing away for hours?

I was also thinking about the fact that I got out of the habit of reading books. Hollie recently posted about this phenomenon, and a lot of her motivations away from books were mine too (also her lovely depiction of being a childhood bookworm). It never felt like I was wasting time to read nonfiction, although it was still hard to fit it in between kids and commitments. I also had a lot of challenges with my eyes; bifocals have finally settled most of THAT problem, thankfully. Lately, I've made a concerted effort to get back reading regularly. I've been taking the boys to the library every other week, and getting an armload of books each time. Graphic novels, local history, cooking, essays and novels, along with the pile of picture books for Linc.

It's slow going, though. And remember that buzz I used to get from phone conversations I mentioned a few 'graphs back? I'm getting it from FaceBook. I can't find the article, but I recently read that social media's little juice hit is not doing us a lot of good. I believe it. I feel isolated and lonely, and it's so easy just to jump onto FB and see how familiar faces and friends all over the world are doing. I can send a comment or note, and post an update, and get a happy little grin when I get a response.

I call or email someone here, and they're all (understandably) busy. I know this stuff takes time, and I feel like I've been putting myself out there, and I HAVE indeed met some wonderful families... but it's soooo slow and I'm needing that connection NOW. I don't want to be all needy and desperate... I've seen it before and it's not pretty. It's certainly not attractive or a way to make friends. So I reach out, sometimes connect but most of the time get politely declined, come home and log on. I wish some of them were on LJ, but the few who are don't read my LJ despite the hints I've dropped... and that kinda stings, too. I don't know how to be interesting enough to get them to want to get to know me. I know that if I'm patient enough, it'll happen... but sometimes I don't feel like I have a whole lot of time to be waiting around.

Argh. Well, anyway, I was musing on this phone stuff, and FB, and LJ. I kinda feel like my slide from f2f connections with friends in my school and community, along with my comfort on the phone and delight in reading novels and subscriptions to three daily newspapers, has slid to LJ and email and nonfiction and a few magazines and one daily paper, and then slid again to FB and a little AIM/text messaging and a pile of unread magazines and one paper three days a week (and I barely open it).

Am I withdrawing from people and the world? Is this a normal and natural progression, or am I broken from ripping up roots from my established communities, twice?

Well, if I'm broken, then I can work on fixing myself. I've been specifically working with the Artist's Way book to get into a daily writing practice, and that's been feeling Right. I'm hoping my effort with reading books and fiction again will take, and now I'm wondering if that remaking effort could apply to my social interactions.

I've already pared down my FB friends list to people I'd either feel comfortable asking to stay with, or would be delighted if they'd come stay with me. I've been incredibly fortunate to be friends with some of the most creative, fascinating people I've ever met (several of them are in my family!), and I've actually been working on a little letter-writing campaign for those who aren't involved online at all (hmm... I suspect that it is a wee little clue to something that about a dozen of the people I admire and respect the most are rarely, if ever, online at all?). However, it appears that the art of the letter is rapidly dying, and I've only gotten a few responses (or I'm a sucky letter writer).

I am also feeling more resolved to post on LJ more often. I've made a few friends through it that have definitely enriched my life, so I'm going to work on investing some time back into this journal. Even if the hits I get from online communications are cheaper and less nuanced or healthy than the f2f versions, it feels like the LJ discussions and interactions are at least a little deeper and stronger than those of fluffy FB.

Well, no concrete conclusions here. Just musing and wondering whether others are in the same boat.

Comments

[feckalyn.livejournal.com]

I've been fighting with acquaintances for years to jump from myspace (and now Fb) to LJ without much success at all. Seems like if you didn't/don't start here you're not going to dig it as much. And that many (if not most) of my flist maintain a Fb too (and/or constantly post tweet updates instead of substantive information).

I don't think you're 'broken' I just think you're changing along with the rest of us. No value judgment; statement of fact. And I know first hand as well that uprooting yourself and finding a new social circle is really fucking hard.

I definitely relate to your change in feelings about the phone; mine rarely, if ever, rings. I am not finding myself sucked away from books or into the 'shallower' interactions of Fb or twitter per se but my life has been partially 'virtual' for over a decade. In some ways I feel it's been of huge benefit and in others I see its detriment *shrug*. Overall, I feel I'd be in trouble had I not at least minimally participated in this technological shift.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mostly skip the tweet posts. Bleah.

Thanks for responding. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just whistling into the wind here...

[feckalyn.livejournal.com]

I simply can't focus on tweet posts. My brain just rebels.

And spring is a notoriously dead time around LJ. I haven't gotten much attention at all over the last two weeks. I just assume that everyone is out and about in the newly returned sun :) (Though I think they should come inside now and respond to my posts!)

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Yeah, obviously you're not alone and a lot of energy has moved from LJ to FB. Me, I hate FB and I like it here, so I stay...but it's not what it was. And yes, I don't like talking on the phone either. Honestly I think part of it is technological: sound quality is worse on cell phones to the point that it's actively stressful to talk on the phone because I have to spend so much energy just deciphering what people say.

Letter writing is stone dead, it's not just you.

[mh75.livejournal.com]

It astounds me how many people i know who hate facebook, but still use it, like myself. The excuse often seems to be 'thats where my family is', and that is true for me, too. Of course, there is a bifurcation of what i'm willing to post on fb, as opposed to what i'm willing to post on lj. fb is life-lite.

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

I don't like to gab away for hours, and will not call someone often if I know that that person likes to be on the phone for more than 20 minutes at a time, but if that amount of talk will make you happy, it would make me happy, too.

There's nothing wrong with you if you have less than the average number of friends, whatever that is, and people just have different needs. You are not broken.

[mh75.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the phone. I have a hard time parsing what i'm hearing, so my attention wanders too easily. I find it really frustrating. I'm much better in writing, or even Skype where i can see the person.

[essaying.livejournal.com]

I'm having similar experiences, but I don't mind it as much. I have a few friends here, and very occasional visits from out-of-town friends, and the rest of the time I just bop along in my comfortable little groove. Of course, it matters that E is home even more than I am; I'm almost never alone-alone (a situation about which I have mixed emotions). I'm not inclined to point a finger at on-line interactions as the culprit, though -- I think it's just a function of age. My need for excitement, novelty, social-ness has gone *way* downhill in the last decade or so, perhaps because I had way more than I wanted during my last relationship.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

I'd be less unhappy about it if I didn't have a 5yo...

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're broken, but it almost sounds like a therapeutic recoiling. Maybe the withdrawing isn't a sign of "broken", it's just a sign that you need to go inside for awhile. I've felt that way too, it really hit hard after the surgery, when I was forced to just sit and think for hours on end. That's when the tv watching slowed waaaaay down, and the book reading picked up heavily, and now a lot of other small things are happening, too. It's like I'm realigning a lot of my life to a new direction. Maybe that's where you are too, just in the beginning hermiting stages?

Not trying to diagnose, just offering an idea. *hugs*

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

Well, I feel I've been in this spiraling pattern for about a decade now... just wondering where it's going, what the driving forces are.

I see you doing the gaming group, and I feel so jealous... how do you get such a group to start? I've floated the idea to some folks here, and either they're so far away that a regular evening thing is just out of the question, or they kind of lukewarm it away.

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

Well, our group is made up of people who have known each other a long time, and several of whom had a tradition many years ago of meeting to game every Friday. When I first met Greg in '93, he was going every Friday night to his ex's house, where she'd host all our friends for food and games. She eventually moved down to the Portland area (ugh, I miss her so much!), and for several years people were wishing they had a game night, but I think they needed someone with that enthusiastic sort of personality to get it going again. Enter moi. :)

So basically when we were getting ready to move, I said, "Hey, we should host Friday game nights again," and two couples and one single person (including myself and my men, this is the core group) were like, YES YES YES. Then others joined in as they felt like it. That's all it took, but you see how it was sort of ripe to happen anyway?

You could try inviting a new person or couple over every week and just play games and talk, and see if you can push the idea of it becoming a regular thing. Maybe that would work? I think it would be hard with new people to just start something from nothing. Our group has a lot of shared history, so there's a huge chunk of social tension that occurs in new groups that we just don't have. I think it's hard to get new folks to subscribe to something regular when they don't know anyone that well, so I'd go with just keeping on with the inviting and expect that you could have many months where the group is always changing. Then after enough shared experiences, folks will settle in.

*hugs*

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I see that something like this is gonna take years, and I just don't see myself staying here for years. But I was in KC for six years, and it took several before I got the knitting playgroup going. So I just need to get something started now, and trust that it will settle eventually.

There's just a long period of keeping it going despite all the slow starting... and thinking about the energy that's gonna take (and trying not to feel rejected when it doesn't take for a while) is just... overwhelming.

Thanks for responding. Knowing someone is at least reading what I'm posting does help!

[jillcook.livejournal.com]

I completely deactivated my facebook account recently, and so did Andrew...thank you for writing this. You have a way of putting words to my own feelings sometimes.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

I'd wondered about that! I hadn't seen you online in a while...

Do you have another online home? I haven't seen any updates to the Life in Lenexa page.

I'm thinking of getting an online forum going here for the unschoolers, based on the KCAP model. Not that I need more online time, but I think I'm using FB as a way to connect with local folks, and a forum would do that more efficiently and not be full of ads. We'll see how it goes.

[lcohen]

i wish that thursday night singing worked for you--that's a group that gets together very regularly. not that i've been going for the past four months, but still. the sunday groups that meet on the northside--i've never been to the 2nd and 4th sunday groups, but i'm sure they're mostly people i've sung with elsewhere and are nice people. the 3rd sunday group when i used to go was a little larger, so harder to meet people, but also good people.

i was never a phone talker, but with so many LDRs, i do more of it, now. but it's different when it's a form of dating. i read a lot less since i have the computer in my home. facebook and i just don't get along and i'm always behind on LJ....