One of my office mates has a cute saying on her desk: You're single because you use emoticons.
I use a lot of smiley faces with online communications, because it is often difficult to determine what someone's intention is by typed words. Email miscommunication has gotten me into trouble before. I can not think of an exact example, but I remember it happening. I particularly like it, in yahoo for instance, when there is a drop-down menu I can chose a face from. Then I do not have to remember how to type it.
The ones I usually use are: :) ;) :p ;p :D
I guess I usually want someone to realize I am joking or giving them a hard time.
I am not sure this explains why I am single.
4 comments:
Damn!! You mean it's been the emoticons all this time! I will stop using them immediately :)
I Love using emoticons. I also (obviously) love capitalizing words in the center of sentences for emphasis, or putting little underlines before and after them. I'm big into emphasis, because like you said, it can be hard to communicate emotions in written form.
I always put "noses" on my emoticons though. They look all smashed up to me without them.
I pretty much stick to :-) and ;-) and :-D.
I have to remember not to use them when I'm talking to someone professionally or more staid in their ways. But I feel free to use them with friends/family and with people younger than me or more "hip" on the computer. I actually used :-) and :-( in a lecture on Tuesday to indicate a good and a bad experimental result.
Funny story, well, funny to me. I remember being in high school and having intraweb mail and I was friends with HB at the time. He was very computer savvy and was using emoticons. Eventually I asked him, "what is this colon parentheses thing you keep typing?" So, for a few weeks or a month I totally wasn't getting his jokes/emotions. I :-) about it now.
Ron, we should compare notes and see if it works to stop using them!
Danielle, that's so funny! Capitalizing in the middle of a sentence is very German of you. Depending on the font, I'll put in a nose or not to make it look less squished. Poor HB thinking he was being so clever all those years ago. ;-)
I don't accept the theory that emoticons cause or extend singlehood. I'm batty for emoticons, and I'm also the queen of long-term relationships. Smile and wink to your heart's content!
:-) (I use the nose.)
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