Words Back

Despite all evidence to the contrary—specifically all of these Argh… posts—there isn’t much that really gets under my skin.  There is one thing that persists, and is something that I just don’t understand: people not replying to correspondence.

Although we have a love affair with the telephone

, we seem to be in an era of increased personal text communication.  Email, SMS, IM, and more are ubiquitous…only letters seem to have gotten short shrift.  And yet, I still have a lot of trouble getting people who I know to write back to me.

Understand, I don’t expect people to be as prolific as I am (well…I <em>DO</em> expect it of my writer friends), but I do expect a majority of non-trivial messages to be acknowledged.  Even a "got it" or "OK" would satisfy.  Instead, about nine-out-of-ten times, I seem to get only silence and blank screens.

Of course there are exceptions.  I have one friend who replies to over 95% of my sendings (which is about what I manage with her, as well).  That is good correspondence, and I will always treasure her for that.  A few other respond more often than not, which I appreciate.

But then there are the rest.  I text.  I email.  I IM.  I write.  And occasionally, just occasionally, I am blessed with a response.  I’ve taken to employing those options, when available, to let me know when someone has accessed what I’ve sent…if I’m not going to get a response, at least I know it was read (probably).

The hard part in the simple acknowledgement message is the trap of last-word-itis.  I know I must often seem as one who tries to get in the last word.  I don’t think I am, but I could be wrong.  In my mind, I’m simply trying to acknowledge what the other person has said.  Even so, I try to be very mindful of when a thread has ended and it’s time to stop replying (although my threshold for that seems to be higher than for many).

So, everyone reading, pay heed.  When people send you messages, let them know you at least got it.  If you’ve been asked a question, try to answer it.  If you are in a forum (such as MySpace) where people can see you’ve read their message, make a point of not leaving them hanging&mdash;it’s rude.  And for you people like me…give others some slack.  People are busy, and sometimes don’t have time to respond to volumes of text.  Even so, don’t stop writing because you are being ignored.  You’re better than that (though you <em>are</em> allowed to relate the size of Christmas presents to the percentage of replies you receive).