Why Won’t you Talk to Me: On being sick and tired of texting

By Melinda Moulton

This is going to agitate a few of you, but I don’t care. I am just sick and tired of not hearing human voices. People don’t talk to each other anymore—they TEXT. We relate with emojis, letters for words and incomplete sentences and phrases that lack emotion. Conversation has been reduced to a “notification beep.” 

Many people in my life who mean so much to me now use this one-way communication highway for their typed narratives. There is no give and take, no back and forth. I can’t hear their voices and I feel empty and disengaged.

  OK, I get that this is a “time saving” method of communicating. “LUV U 2” and all that, but maybe if humanity slowed down a bit and actually talked to one another there might be more peace in the world.

  Texting for me is like fake nails. Both are super popular, but they both are missing the importance of authenticity. In fact, they are missing the point. I want to hear what you have to say in the same way I want to see your real keratin fingernails, not plastic fakey ones.

  It is impossible to truly understand anyone from reading typed words on my phone, and it is obviously not your real nails because no one has real nails that look like that.

  I have an almost six-decade friendship with an old college chum.  Over the past few years my friend’s preference is to text about most everything. I don’t mind anyone texting me that they will be five minutes late or texting me the address of where we are having dinner or texting me if I really need to know quickly because it is “crunch” time.

  But I wilt when someone texts me an epistle on my little phone and I have to figure out how to respond; it is exhausting. Quite frankly, I find that most texts I receive evoke nothing measurable beyond confusion.  A friend of thirty years recently sent me a vapid text where he signed off “you are nice people.”

“Hey old friend of thirty years, you need to explain yourself because I am so confused by this text. “Nice people’ (followed by a crazy face emoji)? What does that mean?). Is this friendship cratering?   

  Let’s face it: it is a much different experience when a person speaks to me about their goings-on in a phone call so we can exchange stories about our lives. We can then go back and forth with emotional sharing.

  When I text, I always finish with a big red heart, so no one thinks I am mad at them. But that red heart means nothing compared to my voice saying, “love you and we’ll talk soon” in my most raspy Lauren Bacall voice.

  The most warm-hearted text can be viewed with a raised eyebrow and a totally out of synch interpretation. I have had folks text me back with “are you mad at me”? and I reply, “call me, please,” followed by a big red heart.

I do have a group of friends who regularly talk to me, and we meet for lunch, go see a movie, chat on the phone, take a walk. These are the friendships that have flourished. The friendships that try to survive on the wafting fumes of black and white letters on a tiny phone screen eventually fizzle and end up being rather meaningless.

  I asked my social media folks this question about whether or not they preferred to text or talk and most of the 100 who responded … preferred texting. They had a lot of reasons but the one that rose to the top was the “time-saving aspect of texting” …..yeah, yeah, yeah … we’re all so busy.

  Look, I am aware that as a 73-year-old woman I am sitting out on the far side of our changing times, but I lament the days of long phone calls where our hearts were entwined with enchanting musings, when comfort came in the form of “working through problems and disappointments,” and the human voice embraced, enlightened, and healed … when we laughed or cried until our tears fell with pure intent.

  I just want to hear your voice and listen to your words as they find their way into my brain and soothe my heart, and I want to respond so my voice can return to your brain and soothe your heart. And we can dance back and forth with our voices until it is time to say our goodbyes—

“Love you and we’ll talk soon!”

Melinda Moulton is a writer, filmmaker and community advocate based in Vermont.