Texts, Telephone and Online Conversations: What Are People Really Saying?

At times, you meet and get to know a person without the benefit of face to face contact. I've met many through online interaction. Others have become my friend from just one telephone conversation. There are others with whom I maintain a consistent text relationship.

I met my husband's mother on the phone before he and I started dating. I'd never seen a photo of her. With my vivid imagination always in overdrive, I created a picture of the person on the other end of the telephone line based on the sound of her voice.

Mom's voice was medium pitch, somewhat grainy. She sounded shy. Or maybe I was mistaking the way she sounded with the way I actually felt. Anyway, my mind took a snapshot of a petite, light-skinned woman wearing a short afro as the lady on the other end of the phone line.

Boy, was I wrong! Mom was the opposite of everything I imagined. She had been petite - 20 years earlier. She'd never, EVER been light-skinned, and she wore a wig. When I share the image I retrieved with friends and relatives from that first telephone conversation with my future mother-in-law , I get the same reaction to this day. They laugh for half an hour.

I'm real bad about reading between the lines in online conversations and texts. This is just some of what I read:

1. People who use lots of exclamation points every time they text or write a sentence are either overly excited or over flattering. Both actions are questionable.

2. People who love to use abbreviations LOL (laugh out loud), SMH (shaking my head), TY (thank you), IDK (I don't know), etc. take for granted the recipient knows what they are saying. Where do they get these things anyway? Is there a dictionary of online and text abbreviations? Or do people make them up as they go along?

3. People who shorten words, (thanx for thank you; ur for your, you're or you are; 4 for for; 2 for to, and too, 4get for forget; luv u for I love you; and st8 for straight), do it for convenience sake. My hope is that they don't forget how to spell these words in the real world.

4. People who use all capital letters to write what they are trying to say make you feel like they are shouting at the top of their lungs. Okay, we get the point.

There are times I doubt the sincerity of the person behind the text message or the online chat, because I can't judge them by their facial expressions and body language. It's like the words have a "vibe." But then, it could be my overactive imagination again.

All in all, I've met and made wonderful friends online, on the phone and through text messaging. I look forward to MSOTIP (meeting some of them in person) one day J .