Remember when the only way to have a fight with another person was to be face to face with them? Well, I don't, always having had the option to fight over the phone, but with the advent of internet there is yet another way to duke it out (mentally not physically)...via email, chat and message forums.
I had a fight once with a friend, all done over a series of emails and it ended our friendship. To this day it is still the most random, idiotic fight I've ever had and I wonder what the hell we were both thinking. I want to believe our friendship was on its deathbed anyway but this might be wishful thinking.
I fought with my mother the same way so we didn't actually speak to each other for weeks. I was overseas at the time and this arrangement didn't make me happy.
The reason this suddenly popped into my head is that, during a fit of insomnia (from which I'm still currently suffering, it's past midnight here) I was browsing on a message forum I frequent and noticed a thread starting to turn very sour. (for internet forum newbies, a thread consists of an original message with all its replies) Now you can fight without even having to hear the other person's voice, much less see their face.
A major problem with internet chatting, messaging and emailing is that tone doesn't come through. What one person intended as a joke, is taken at face value by another. Sarcasm is probably one of the hardest things to express via type and has prompted many a confused reply from friends. Then you send a reply to the confused email explaining what you really meant. Imagine, if you were face to face, or even on the phone, none of that would've happened. Of course on larger message boards some people seem to lurk for the express purpose of dumping on what everyone else has to say.
Perversely, internet is also one of things that keep people in contact who would otherwise drift apart from each other. In the pre-internet days, my mother lost track of her friends in Korea due to a series of moves and general life busyness. She managed to locate them again and now keeps in contact mainly through email. I myself adore email, actually I'm probably unhealthily obsessed with it. Messenger programs are great too, particularly with the addition of sound and video (for free!). A close friend, from my Korea days, and I regularly chatted via messengers and kept up our friendship this way. But I digress...
I can never conclude my posts properly so I'll just say this is the end of it. Oi but I need some sleep. Take care y'all.
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