Confesson from An Introvert

by janna

Why do I so prefer emailing to phone calling??

My son says it's because I'm a coward. Perhaps. My daughter says it's because I am basically an introvert and would rather not interact with people. That's possible, and it's true that secretly I hope to leave a voice message when I call, but I don't mind face-to-face interaction. It's just telephone conversation I don't like.

I find talking on the phone to be a waste of time, but communicating through letters has always seemed to be a most valuable use of time. I am one who mourns the passing of the time-honored custom of exchanging letters. I have always preferred to think out my words before speaking them. I am better at writing my thoughts than verbalizing them off the cuff. And I'd rather read other people's words, think about my response, and compose my reply when I'm ready to do so. Does that make me terribly formal, stuffy, antisocial? When, in unfortunate connection with my church calling, I have to ask people to do stuff, I prefer to write my request so they can think about it before they respond. I think I get more "yeses" that way.

People say email cheapens the language, that thoughts and ideas just disappear into cyberspace. Surely phone calls, where the words evaporate into air as they are spoken, are worse. Unless the emails are strictly for taking care of business -- a highly worthwhile utilization -- I tend to save them, to reread them, and after some time has passed, to print and file them. True, emails lack the identifying personal penmanship of letters from the past, but they still preserve the person's voice for me. Phone calls can never do that.

And when I send an email, I do not worry that I am interrupting people at an inconvenient moment or invading their private time. I often don't answer the phone if I don't feel like talking, but a lot of people don't feel right about doing that. With email, I check my messages when I want to. And respond when I want to. Yeah -- that does make me sound pretty self-important, I know. But I allow others the same prerogative, and it wouldn't hurt any of us to learn to wait a bit.