Active Voice...

I had written a blog post on why the SMS, and other forms of instant messaging, are preferable to phone calls: casual conversations bereft of any urgency are not hampered by the delay in verbal exchanges; there is always a trail to refresh your memory in case of abruptly paused conversations; it is easier to lie and to maintain the consistency of the lie, be it innocuous or otherwise; texting affords greater privacy in an age we are almost always surrounded by people; perhaps most importantly, you can choose your words wisely, at least after reading what you've typed in. I still find it comfortable to trade thoughts in short bursts of text rather than by blurting into a phone. But conversations in recent months have made me want to call, largely because of the person at the other end. 

SMS and IM work for me because I try to use the same phraseology and sentence structure in speech as I do in writing, and yearn to say something clever. Indeed my speech is often filled with pauses and haws as I string words together to convey something. And as a listener, I can get thrown off by words I don't recognize, either because I am unfamiliar with them or with their pronunciation. So, the momentary tuning out can have me catching up on the discussion. With these traits, a gap in communication helps avert a communication gap. Also, the few tones that characterize my speech are almost covered by a selection of the smileys and stickers and what have you. 

For someone who converses with flair, who gets transformed into a conduit for an expressive gush of their thoughts, feelings, and emotions, the SMS and IM could be constricting. The person who's made me miss the phone call that's yet to be dialed communicates with an exuberance that was surprising at first but has been enlivening ever since. She has shades of laughter beyond the rainbow of emoticons, forcing her to type out her laughter in terms of ha ha has and he he hes and hee hee hees, the number of vowels at the end of each element (ha, he, or hee) subject to change, and so also the number of elements denoting a laughter. Then there are words from the regional languages, words that express a particular idea in the most evocative way, an idea that would be undermined by the use of English words that aren't a perfect fit. She also has a knack for pragmatically blending regional languages and English to concoct vivid informants that are highly effective. Sometimes, she borrows exclamations from the regional language too. Where the regional language is involved, transliteration of words into English and their subsequent decipherment can be an issue in text-based communication. And as with her laughter, she mimics in text the drag on each word and exclamation in speech, which infuse words with the spirit behind the utterance, say, playfulness or sarcasm or surprise.

I am not the best communicator, but I'm an earnest listener. So every time we exchange pings, I'm left wondering how a particular set off words might have sounded in her voice, leave alone the sniggers and giggles and chortles and boisterous laughs. Yet, I cannot shake off the feeling that the phone call is likely to be an inferior substitute to actually being in her presence. Have we had any breakthroughs as regards teleportation?