Your texts are so dull
I tried to conversate more
But it was futile.
Glance down at your text message inbox and you’re guaranteed to have a large group of threads replete with “trail offs.” What is a trail off, you ask? It’s when your conversation takes on this form. At the beginning the texts read like this:
You: dude I’m so glad you found me on facebook! We haven’t talked in forever, how’ve you been? What’ve you been up to? Are you still seeing that one crazy chick from the East Coast?
Eventually, however, the thread dies a slow and painful death:
You: I totally get that.
Him: right?
You: yeah.
…
Conversations (if they can even be called that) like these are not only painful to watch but painful to be in. Trail offs happen pretty frequently and the harsh reality is that these trail offs are partly your fault. The age old idiom still holds true, it does take two to tango (or conversate, in this case) and you’re one of the two tango-ers. If you find that a good portion of your text threads end with trail offs, chances are high that you lack the linguistic ability necessary for a successful text conversation.
If you read the above proclamation and got angry, go count to 100 and then come back. I need you to read the above diagnosis with an open mind. All hope is not lost and you’re not a worthless person for not being a clever linguist, you just haven’t learned how to tango properly. Just how does one become an creative chatter? Here are two quick tips for conversation improvement.
1) consume written words and then reexplain them. Consume something other than the events of your daily life. I don’t care if that thing is a book of daily prose, a cooking blog, a fashion magazine, or a calendar with photos of adorable kittens standing next to famous sayings, just make it something outside of your daily routine. Ingest the words, and then spit them back out again. Get a twitter feed and tweet about what you’ve read. Create a blog and write a 100-word blog on what you’ve read. Grab a piece of paper, scribble down some thoughts about what you’ve read, and tack it to a telephone pole. The trick is to allow new thoughts to enter into your world, mull them over, and then spit them back out again. This will greatly improve your choice of conversational topics and also increase your ability to word things well.
2) try to come up with one original thought a day. An original thought doesn’t need to be something that’s never been thought of, it has to be something that you’ve never thought of before. Try to form an opinion (with reasons for why you formed said opinion) on the little piece of writing you read that morning (see tip #1). This will both inspire your creativity and further your originality. After all, having unique, interesting opinions on the things around you is an amazing way to breathe new life into a conversation.
fabulous.
was just reading in one of my textbooks for grad school, “Teaching Content Reading & Writing” this quote
“the way you become a write is you write. every day. no exceptions. nobody believes this. everybody wants to believe in something called “talent” or “inspiration” or “knack for it.” maybe there is such a thing, but it has nothing to do with becoming a writer…nobody can tell you how to write, but there are certain things you can do to get to a good place where you can write. there are three of them: write everyday. write everyday. write everyday. this is all i know.”
because reading and writing are closely linked i found your post amusing, to say the least. bravo.
I appreciate the sentiment here, but I think it’s misplaced.
Texting is not a conversational art worth critiquing others over. It’s a crutch, a poor supplement to actual face-to-face conversation, and trying to refine texting as a conversational art will, in most people’s cases, make texting a substitute rather than a supplement.
Want to have a meaningful conversation? Call that person. Texting deprives conversation of the emotional nuances of face-to-face or voice-to-voice, and without those nuances, we’re more narcissistic and less sympathetic conversationalists.
It’s much easier to criticize or confront someone when all you have to do is type out your feelings and when you have the safety net of being able to ignore the other person’s response should you so choose. You don’t have that in a face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversation. Our generation often prefers to have difficult conversations over text, and I think that’s nothing short of cowardly, because in doing so, you distance yourself from having to actually see and hear what the other person is feeling. This, in turn, often makes us less respectful and sensitive and thoughtful with our words, because we are far less mindful of the fact that we’re talking to another God-created human being.
I don’t think texting should be a primary means of good conversation, either, because if the conversation is worthwhile, it should take place through a means that requires us to actually dedicate time to that person. A good, meaningful conversation shouldn’t take place in between doing something else. If you’re not multitasking, then why not actually make the phone call? Show the person you’re conversing with that they matter enough to speak to them without distractions on the side.
We need to become better face-to-face conversationalists, not better texting conversationalists. There’s a wealth of research that shows texting is largely responsible for crippling our ability to do so, because it’s too easy to make those conversations one-sided or lazy, or to make those conversations something we can intersperse with other activities rather than something intentional.
Also, I can’t help but mention that the word is “converse,” not “conversate.”
I feel it’s also worth mentioning that texts likely often trail off because texting, as a means of communication, has no defined end point. A face-to-face conversation has a clear beginning and end — you meet and then you part ways. Texting, meanwhile, is a bit more awkward because even if you’re done with that conversation, everybody knows your phone is probably still within arm’s reach at all times. Saying “see ya later!” via text feels a little bit like saying goodbye to your friend, even though you’ve just moved to opposite sides of the room.
I’d be willing to bet that a lot of trail-offs are also the result of texting as a medium for distracted/multitasking conversation. The other person was probably doing something else on the side the whole time you were communicating, but the distractions finally took over. This, again, is something that is easily avoided by conversing in person or at least via phone call.