Fry finally finds the words to express himself to Leela via conversation heart
In my first semester of college, Facebook was known as The Facebook and was restricted to only a handful of universities. It had yet to include any of the schools my friends attended and was not at all the Facebook that we know today. There were no status updates, no photos, no wall and looking back now – I wonder how we made any use of it at all.
Because of this, my high school friends and I were forced to keep in touch via what is now kind of the old-fashioned way – mass email. I would come home from a full day of class to find a couple new emails in my inbox and I’d sit there scrolling through them one by one. Though I was filled with the frenetic energy that comes with that first year of freedom, these emails were soothing in its familiarity. My high school friends were almost all writers and/or actors so they had no trouble eloquently expressing themselves with their own distinct voices. I never really had to look at the email address or signature to know whose email I was reading.
However, there was one very extreme exception to the rule. One of these friends (let’s call him Frank) was our token quiet kid. Among the boisterous theatre geeks, he stood out with his reserved, buttoned-up demeanor. Frank spoke only when spoken to and he replied with the maximum of three squeaky words at a time. Strangely enough, Frank’s emails were solid pages of witty, lyrical compositions. He had a talent for unfurling insightful revelations from typical college stories and finding poignant moments in the mundane. I felt as if Frank had been shortchanging himself by keeping this incredible side silent.
Many of us read the works of our favorite writers with the assumption that they are as articulate in person. We are less likely to assume that our quiet acquaintances are pent up balls of eloquence. We don’t even have to look at a case as extreme as Frank’s to discuss this subject – hell, we don’t even have to talk about professional writers alone. The fact of the matter is that this topic is more relevant than ever. To enable our culture of multitasking, a good majority of our communications are done through writing. We text message, we wall post, we email, we Gchat, iChat, IM. As I write this post, my roommate is giggling behind me – clearly charmed by whatever it is she’s reading online. She happens to be iChatting a friend that she often refers to as “the painfully awkward one.” In person, he is King Creator of Uncomfortable Moments (you know, that guy who repeats a joke when no one laughs because he thinks maybe you didn’t hear it the first time) but online, he’s apparently quite charismatic. My roommate says that the worst of his conversational offenses lies in the fact that his spoken words are clearly premeditated and poorly executed. This kid also happens to be a writer.
I feel I can safely say that I’m not an awkward conversationalist (although occasionally I like to make things awkward on purpose because I take some strange childish delight in watching people squirm). This likely comes from the fact that I consider myself a conversationalist first and a writer second – I thrive on interaction with others. In fact, writing this blog has been a strange experience for me. People don’t stop me in the middle of a sentence here – I get to complete entire thought processes without a single interjection. It’s at once liberating and all the more challenging. There is a finality and permanence to the typed word that doesn’t exist in the spoken one. Though I don’t believe there is a direct correlation between a good writer and a good conversationalist, I can see how a great writer could have trouble speaking. If you prefer and are used to the ability to physically see and edit the words you use to express yourself, the spontaneity of conversation can seem daunting – especially if you’re the type of writer that has the discipline to lock yourself up in a room and do nothing but write for days at a time.
To the Franks and the King Creators of Uncomfortable Moments, I leave you with this: I trust that you can find some way to let your written genius shine in spoken form and I suspect that your current difficulty with it has much to do with your desire to self-edit. Oh, and whatever fear you may have in saying things aloud, know that it can never be worse than this.
