MOOP!

I have been trying, for a few weeks now, to write a post about the different ways I communicate. This has absorbed into itself the thing I've wanted to write for a few months now, about the different social networks I use, and how I use them. The eventual post is looking to be unwieldy in a bad way, so I'm going to split it up into a few parts. This post discusses the broadest kinds of communication, and how I utilize or feel about them.

Textual:

Textual communication includes IM, e-mail, letters, and hand-written stuff that I allow other people to read¹. It is an integral part of all my social media sites (LJ/DW, Fetlife, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, G+), though not the entirety.

Textual communication is my single favourite kind of communication. It is the clearest to me. It is very fast. It can be explicit, while still retaining clever subtleties (and indeed, word choice, captilization, punctuation...all of these can add a layer of subtlety not necessarily available in other forms). It has the huge advantage of being fully archivable, and accessible at later dates. It gives me a chance to think about my words before I express them, to revise. Things written down or read make sense to me in a way that things spoken to/by me don't.

Visual:

Visual communication includes drawings, paintings, sketches, art, animations, photographs, clothing, etc. I am using it only to refer to things created by me, not actions I take (see: Movement). It is often a part of all my social media sites, though not the entirety.

I enjoy visual communications, but tend to consume them very quickly. While there have been some images that I have dwelled on, taking in every detail, most of the time I glance at it and move on. I do not spend a lot of time teasing out the hidden meaning of the things I am looking at. On the creation side, I do not tend to do a lot of communication with the world through visual art. I draw a lot of things, but it is not to express myself, it is because I want to draw fanart or whatever. Same photographs --they are to document cool things, not usually to try and get a point across. (a rare photographic exception.)

Movement:

Movement communication includes gestures, fidgeting, dancing, body language, facial expressions. It often works tandem with touch communication, or audial communication.

I use gestures often to cover gaps in my spoken vocabulary. I flail my hands around, rotate the wrist to indicate you should continue, point at people when they are correct. I am not particularly good at forcing my posture into a mood I'm not in --if I'm hunching my shoulders, pulling myself back into a ball, it means I am withdrawing (or sometimes that I am very cold). I make faces at people, but I'm not great at having unspoken conversations like some people I know are. I am fairly observant of other people's countenance, and once I know someone reasonably well, I can pick up on when they are not okay. I will usually ask if I think it is important I understand something, because I always prefer explicit communication to implied.

Touch:

Touch communication includes my touching you, or my not touching you. (or your touching/not touching me.)

I like touching a lot. I like being touched, but only sometimes and only sometimes by certain people, and it's hard for me to give examples in here without drawing attention to the blanks. I do a lot of communicating by touching people in certain ways, but it's subtle, and I make a point of assuming people won't generally pick up on subtle. I do not receive touch based communications very well, because I over or under think them. In general, asking strangers before you touch them for the first time is a good thing to do. If we have never touched, and I have never given you explicit permission to touch me, you should ask me first. This has quickly digressed away from communication and into consent culture, but that drives home the real point --it is hard for me to communicate when I am caught up in freaking out about what is going on. Please do not expect touch-based communication from me.

Auditory:

Auditory communication includes anything that involves speaking aloud, phones, Skype (along with movement), music.

Auditory communication is my least favourite way to communicate. I do not hear particularly well, I do not process words as quickly if they are spoken to me. Things are not real (to me) until they have been written down. I don't feel as eloquent or organized when I have to speak aloud. I babble too much --worse even than in text, where I can pull out large chunks of text and save them for later. There is no ability to revise in spoken conversation.

I do not, I should note, hate talking aloud. I rather enjoy conversation and have problems with silence (which is a post I should write sometime). It works fine for most things. But if you want me to remember something, you should write it down for me (or better yet, get me to write it down.)

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I think that's all the main categories. Expect further writing on this topic, especially w/r/t social media to come soon.

~Sor
MOOP!