Don't Break The Silence

I was having a behind the scenes (e-mail) conversation the other day with a very good friend of mine and she happened to make an observation that I was becoming a little guarded with a few of my e-mails. And being the good friend that I am, I naturally agreed with her. I didn't say it to be nice or score brownie points, I said it because I am genuinely like that in my personal correspondence with my friends.

I would like to use my answer that I gave to her as an explanation as to why I'm so guarded with my personal correspondence with my friends.

"I'm always worried about offending my friends...as you know, my circle of friends is predominately female and while sometimes its hard to get a read on what their frame of mind is at a given moment, it's doubly hard when the only way you can communicate is via the written word.

When you're face to face, it's easy to read body language and facial expressions, and it's kind of easy to figure out the verbal nuances and clues that people give off when they speak.

With the written word, its very hard to read body language, facial language or even verbal nuances or inflection when a person writes.

I can't tell you the amount of times that I've had to back peddle or apologize or even go into a lengthy explanation over something that I've written (remember the innocuous comment I made about your hair last year?) that was grossly misinterpreted as something else.

I won't say that all my friends are mercurial by nature, but I've learned over the past several years that sometimes what I say can often be the death of me, which is why I'm a little nuanced and guarded when I talk to you, or to anyone else for that matter, via the e-mail.

I know that you've reiterated on numerous occasions that it's very hard to offend you, but just the same, I always want to err on the side of caution when I write, which is why I sometimes sound like a politician in my e-mails."

The reasoning as to why I decided to write about such a strange topic probably has more to do with being curious about why I do what I do than anything else. I like thinking out loud and while I was having this conversation, I got to thinking about the fact that even though I'm having a casual conversation with a good friend, I'm still sort of editing myself as I type. I'm either prefacing what I say with an apology, or giving an unnecessary explanation as to why I said what I said or I'm holding back what I'm saying just enough for the person that I'm talking to ask if something is wrong.

So tell me, do you have the same problem or do the same thing that I do when you have conversations with friends, especially when you're doing it via the e-mail or texting? Do you still edit/censor your more salacious thoughts and words, even though you've gotten reassurances from the other party that they won't be offended by whatever it is that you want to say? Or do you just go ahead and say whatever it is that you want to say and damn the consequences?