From: rnoguchi@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ryan Alexander Noguchi)
Subject: Re: letters, opinions, women, romance
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 06:02:35 GMT

In article <Bx8GBn.DHF@news.cso.uiuc.edu> bzb47596@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Phaedrus) writes:
[...]
>I have found myself spilling my guts a lot more often in letters than in
>person.
>Its not that I hide behind writing letters or anything.  Sometimes its a 
>physical seperation that causes the letter, sometimes its just a need to 
>express myself in a more rigid media than a conversation. With some women
>I find it hard to move the topic away from mundane things to 'deep' things
>and a letter provides me a place where i can be open and honest and complete
>about my emotions, and she can't shrug it off or change the subject like
>might happen in a conversation.  It also allows me more of a chance to gather
>my complete feelings than trying to remember everything I wanted to say in
>the heat of a conversation.
>
>So what's the viewpoint out there?

	I find people will reveal a little more through email than
over the phone.  Some people feel that's more impersonal, maybe that's
true, but speaking as a romantic, it's your conversee's real feelings
that are important, not the fraction that she or he is subconsciously
willing to tell you to your face.  Everyone carries emotional baggage
that makes it more difficult to be completely forthright when looking
directly in someone's eye; that's just human nature.  By
"impersonalizing" the communication, I find people tend to be more open,
more revealing.  I know it makes me open up a lot easier sometimes.  Now
don't get me wrong, I don't think I've ever written anything I didn't
*want* to say, just some things that I might not have been able to say
to the person directly.  I find that's true most of the time with others
as well, except those who feel the need to turn the letter into an
English assignment, analyzing each word scrupulously and fastidiously
checking and rechecking and rewriting their letters so it's PERFECT, even
if you're just talking about some relatively mundane experience.

	A lot of people tend to put up a facade, subconsciously, that
is stronger in personal interaction than it is in written form; in my
experience, the reverse is definitely in the minority!  I don't mean
that in any sort of derogatory tone; just that I find people tend to be
more honest with themselves and with others when speaking through the
impersonal filter of the computer, which is a coarser mesh than the
filter of the ego in personal interactions.  Think of the phenomenon of
the love letter and compare that to hearing it read over the phone.
Quite a different effect, I think.  Also, your conversee can have a
record of what's been said, which can be kept and cherished forever,
while memories of conversations are fleeting even at their best.  
IMHO, email is the best medium for the bulk of your communication with 
your LDRSO for this reason alone, if nothing else.  

        And I don't think that email has any less impact than a
handwritten letter.  What's truly important is the content of the
letter; its substance, not its packaging.  You can print out hard copies
or if you're fortunate enough to be on a good UNIX system and own a Mac
:) you can download it and put in a more aesthetically appealing font if
you so desire.   Besides, I find that people will write much more and
much more frequently through email than through snail mail.  With the
inefficiency of snail mail and having to handwrite a document, you have
to strike a compromise between quantity and quality; with email, you can
have the best of both, and get to hear more of your conversee's
thoughts, which is the main point of writing, isn't it?

        So letter writing does have some quirks, but overall I think
it's a pretty good medium for communication, as long as you think of it
more as remote control conversation rather than an english assignment.
Analyze it no more than you would a personal conversation, and you'll
get information just as well; overanalyzing is a danger that is easily
avoided if you approach it with the right mindset.  For someone who's a
good listener at heart, and yet can express himself well from the heart,
letter writing is an excellent medium, arguably the best; it's those who
find they need to project a certain image that isn't natural or who feel
a greater need to talk and interject his views more than listening in
earnest to what his conversee has to say that have the hardest time
adjusting to the nuances of this medium.  And I think it's their loss.

Best regards,
- Ryan "the email junkie"             rnoguchi@phoenix.princeton.edu
Newsgroups: alt.romance.chat