05 april 2025
town mail is interesting. it feels like an intersection of two realms of communication that have become more and more distant during my life, and i think that's quite fascinating.
i always grew up in internet spaces where it's really uncommon to contact a friend (or anyone besides a professional connection, really) by email. instant messaging has become the medium i'm used to when it comes to personal communication.
on here, that's not as true. we have IRC and probably other stuff that is instant i don't know about, but on here i've actually used town mail to talk to people personally. maybe i found their homepage and found it interesting, maybe i read their feels and wanted to talk, maybe something else.
it's harder for me to write an email like this one than to respond to an instant message. there's no feedback on if you're saying the "right things", so i experience a lot more friction when writing an email. it's so much more important to get my words and ideas straight.
geniunely, i feel like that's a good thing. the really clear thing is that i'm learning (or more accurately, relearning) a more deliberate method of communication than i've come to expect.
but also, i think there's a chance this can serve as an exercise for better dealing with hard face-to-face conversations. if i get better at finding my words quickly in an email, maybe i can find them quickly when a friend is starting to cry and maybe i can better comfort them.
being social is difficult, and it's a difficult thing that is worth doing.