So What You're Saying Is…

If you’ve ever called me, and I didn’t answer, don’t take offense. I don’t like the phone. If I want to speak to you, I’d rather do it face-to-face. If I want to communicate with you, I’ll do it however is most convenient.

Years ago, the way to communicate with someone when you couldn’t (or didn’t want to) do it in person was to send a letter, or send someone to say the words for you.

After that we invented the telegraph. You could talk to someone without writing a letter or going to see them. Note that people didn’t stop writing letters.

Then they invented the phone and the radio to speed up communication. This was a great success, but being able to put your thoughts in writing carefully ahead of time were still not replaced.

Along came the Internet. Finally, instant communication with the benefits of radio and letter writing combined. I no longer need to speak to someone face to face, and they no longer need to wait a week to hear from me. We still write email instead of using Skype or FaceTime.

Don’t call me. It’s a waste of time. Not because I don’t like your voice, but because your words are easier to respond to when they’re written down. Honestly, when people are talking to me, my mind wanders to the next topic. Speaking is slow, like hand-writing things. And I’m bad at it. Give me a second to collect my thoughts and maybe I won’t sound like such a jerk.

That is all.