I think the last time I wrote anything that was misunderstood was chatting with a friend on text. She was feeling vulnerable and she just needed a friend to chat with. So, If my memory serves me right, I had texted the words “are you alone?” This was meant to state the obvious if she was with a friend or husband for that matter. I was just being respectful is all. But instead, she got defensive and told me she is not looking to be with anyone, she just got divorced. I was thinking to myself “I was just asking to be respectful. I gave her a day and called her to respectfully explain my text message. I think she had forgotten all about it, however, it plagued my mind during that time. So I had to call her. We are good friends now and have built mutual friendships for the past 4 yrs now. Occasionally we go hiking and golf together but we decided that texting wasn’t good for us, so we call now. It's a funny but true story. I might send a text after the pandemic is over to see if she is “alone?” and if she would like to go on a movie date? This should be exciting.
My texting skills may have lagged the emoticons or acronyms but I am a bit old school when it comes to communicating with old friends. I grew up before we even had the internet or personal computers. The first time I had any experience with computers was in the late 80s. I remember our way of communicating with anyone you liked at school was to write It on a piece of paper and drop it into their lockers. This was the fun part, it had them thinking who it was from? Today, you can text family on the other side of the world whenever you want. The convenience of telecommunication has advanced far beyond what I had imagined.
Back to my communication mishap with “her”. I think if I had called her instead of texting back, it would have helped the situation. But then again, I am glad there was a miscommunication. So it may have been a good thing on my part. The mysteries of life.
So what was I thinking when I wrote “ are you alone?” I am collecting my thoughts, I think I was just trying to make sure that she was alone and I was not interrupting. Maybe I should have worded It differently by asking her if she was with friends or her husband only because I did not know she had just recently been divorced. Or maybe she was just being emotional and I was trying to take advantage of the situation. I am just making assumptions now but maybe later I can ask her about that time. Then I will return with the reasoning behind it. Fun that will be for my readers. The saga continues. So my takeaway is next time when texting with an emotional person, be sure to ask questions that are relatable to her emotional state at the time of the text. Clarification, understanding, and listening would be great for making empathic statements.
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