I am a writer. Sometimes I get all self-deprecating and call myself a “writer” or I say I have a silly little blog, but deep down where it matters, the word writer is carved into the very essence of my being. It always has been and it always will be. I am — most of the time — good with the words.
With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about the nature of ‘modern dating.’ (Christ almighty, what a terrible term. I’m sorry.) I’m lucky so much of how we communicate and get to know people takes place via writing: texts, emails, Facebook, Twitter, the list goes on. This applies to far more than just those we meet online. In fact, if not for the interwebz and ICQ (uh-oh!), I doubt my high school relationship would’ve even made it off the ground. We worked together, and even though I had the balls to ask him to go to a hockey game with me, it wasn’t until he bought a computer months later and we started IMing that anything actually happened. Writing allowed me to really get comfortable with him, until the in-person awkwardness disappeared — or at least went away long enough for us to get drunk in a provincial park for May 2-4. Young love is so romantical.
That things have trended towards more written communication has only made things easier for me. Sure, sometimes it can all be a bit much, but having the ability to ‘talk’ in a medium where I feel at home is really advantageous. I get an idea of the person (know how to write or GTFO), I establish a level of comfort, and then I can be a little less awkward IRL. With the right audience, I eventually end up as at-ease verbally. Someone told me my ‘online persona’ matched up with who I am face-to-face, which may be as much a testament to how comfortable I felt in that interaction as it is to me not having multiple personalities.
My communications skills, such as they are, have been recently put to the test with a specific person: introducing ‘JB.’ I’ve actually known him for quite some time, and just as I decided the whole online scene was getting to be a bit much, the universe piped up and said, ‘Hey, look over here.’ There’s a bit of Alanis Morissette-irony that I’ve been all about the idea of finding shiny new people, while here’s someone who’s good friends with some very important people in my life. Universed. He’s a reader (hi!), so he knows exactly what he’s getting himself into. Maybe. It’s always a bit more challenging to figure out what to say here when I know the subject is reading (and said friends are reading as well), so for now I’ll end with this: cautious optimism has always been my mantra, but I’ve decided to drop the cautious and just go balls-out optimistic. What can I say, I like to live dangerously.
Steph Not Stephanie 