Communication - Fatema Conversation #3

The conversation partner conversations have gotten me thinking about communication in general. What types of communication exist, which is best, which most often leads to confusion, etc. Forms of communication vary from letters, to text messages to "poking"on Facebook, to phone calls. Instead of describing the conversation I recently had with Fatema, I decided to instead look at communication in general, after all, isn't this assignment created in order to learn to better communicate with others?

On a beautiful Sunday last week, one of my good friends and I spend the afternoon at Starbucks: reading books, and the paper, and sipping on lattes in the sun. My friend is a speech pathology major and is currently enrolled in Sign Language. I find it so incredible that she is learning such a sparsely-known language and marveled at her ability to sign "Silent Night". While enjoying our Sunday, we noticed a couple speaking in Sign. My friend's eyes sparkled as she attempted to translate what she knew. Unfortunately, the couple were quite experienced at speaking this way, and she could only decode words here and there. Exhibit A; this language was a perfect form of communication for these people, but landed on deaf ears (no pun intended here... truly) to most others in the coffee shop. This is just one language of so many that blocks certain others from knowing what is being communicated but for them, was just right!

Communication, these days, has taken on such an impersonal form. Commenting on an Instagram "You look cute!" has now substituted a weekly phone call to catch up and see what is going on in your friends' lives. Why is that? What in the world has happened to lead to this lazy, ineffective, and forgettable form of communicating? I think technology is to blame, yes; social media sites and our smart phones making messaging via typing (on numerous platforms) easy and accessible, however, technology's growth cannot be the only reason.... Phone calls do still exist and, believe it or not, the art of letter-writing is still a thing.

I talked to a friend recently about her experience abroad last semester. When asking her what she misses most she, of course, lists off the numerous beautiful destinations she would travel to on the weekends, her host mom, and getting to play around for a semester, but a striking comment she always makes is how much she misses the way she communicated. For example, her and her friends made a pact that at dinners they were not allowed to touch their cell phones and whoever did had to pick up the tab for the table. She said there were awkward silences here and there, but this is natural. After all, people aren't intended to be together having witty and intelligent rapport at all hours of the day. Silence doesn't mean that you don't like the person or that you are dumb, it means here is a moment to breathe, to take in the moment with the person or people you are with. She says the conversations she had abroad were so deep and meaningful because they were forced to not just gossip or get ideas about what to talk about from their phones. They were forced to address one another and perhaps even their feelings in that moment.

This is certainly how it is with our conversation partners. There are awkward pauses, sure, but all in all, these silences force us to grow in our relationship and getting to know one another. It's one of the main reasons I enjoy working with Fatema so much. She allows me to be outside of my comfort zone, just minutes away from my own house. Our communication might be surface level, for now, but over time, conversations will continue to grow simply because of their nature. The people using Sign Language to communicate at Starbucks were meeting face to face, creating a memory of their conversation. However insignificant, face to face communication always sticks with you while a text message holds no real gravity in your life after that interaction. You don't see what the person is wearing, how they are acting, what their mood is, etc. If any of you have seen the movie Her, with Scarlett Johansson and Joaquin Phoenix (a story about a man who falls in love with his operating machine) you might see what I'm getting at. (If you haven't seen the movie... I strongly recommend it!) We must invest our communication in meaningful avenues... ones that are not essentially conversing with a screen and even a virtual human (such as in the movie). My conversations with Fatema continue to remind me of the importance of verbal communication in building, and continuing to build a strong line of communication and creating an actual relationship ship with a person versus simply a virtual one.