Communication Breakdown

The wonders of modern technology have meant that my boyfriend and I, whilst being separated by an enormous carbon footprint and an inconvenient time difference of 11 hours (‘so you want me to call you in the morning’, ‘yes, around 10ish’, ‘so is that ten your time in the evening or ten in the morning my time’, ‘oh just sometime tomorrow morning’, ‘hang on, is that my morning or yours?’) are able to communicate pretty much consistently in a wide variety of ways.

Our communication is usually restricted to early mornings and evenings, now I’ve finally grasped the really rather straightforward but damned inconsiderate time zonal interference (although his birthday utterly confused me as he started his celebrations the night before his actual birthday, as obviously I am continuing in the correct time and he was merely dabbling in alternative time zones while his birthday carried on regardless, happy in GMT contentment).

He is a fantastic writer and we have found our medium for fluid and emotional communication in emails, texts (although, as my boyfriend has developed an inconvenient dislike for texting, I often have to send him an email gently encouraging a text in order to keep my consistently ego-massaging texts topped up so I don’t have to rely on vastly over consumed ones that are near expiry), msn and VOIP.

Before he left, we had talked at great lengths about what an asset Skype would be to our relationship. We are both regular Skypers and I conduct a vast amount of work comms through it (yes I even have a rather becoming headset). We trialled a few nervous and emotional Skype calls and, with a few glitches ironed out, we settled comfortably into what we believed would be a blissful, and free, method of communication (we both even have webcams, so we can see our headsetted faces if we so desire).

It was not to be.

I returned to London and sunk back into my WebStressed routine and he begun his lectures. And we Skyped.

Or at least, we attempted to.

It seems that, on returning to their accommodation, the other students have the audacity to assume that they can also contact their loved ones. So we pursued, valiantly, battling against the diminishing bandwidth, attempting, usually unsuccessfully, to interpret what each other were saying, trying desperately to not say ‘can you repeat that’ and ‘what did you say, I’m sorry the connection just dropped out’ more than around 10 times in the space of two minutes.

But we battled in vain. As our conversations continued, for we attempted this hopelessness on several occasions, the delay swelled and expanded, leaving our conversations fractured and hopeless, and our sentences were spliced, vowels and consonants dropping like dehydrated children fainting from their benches in sweltering summer-school choirs.

My boyfriend, as a surprise, attempted a video call in one of these fateful communication disasters. All I saw, briefly before the connection shattered, was part of his t-shirt. And I ungraciously broke down into tears in my office, before I remembered that I was maintaining an astonishing record in not blubbing and gave myself a sharp talking to, then comforted my whimpering self with a cup of tea.

It is two weeks today since he left, since I said goodbye to him at Heathrow. It feels like a lifetime, but it’s only been 14 days.

Everyone said this would be the turning point, that now I would find myself and my place. That the aching would subside, or maybe I’d simply have grown accustomed to the ache, but instead it still feels like I am consistently experiencing that early morning toe stub rather than a mild premenstrual back ache (I’m lucky to escape the violent spasms that many women are forced to endure).

Maybe I haven’t given it a chance yet. It’s not technically 2 weeks yet. I’ve a few hours to go.

So our Skyping continued, every time with the diminishing hope that this time, this time it would all be okay.

And then, just to be really nice, the owners of his accommodation slowed his connection to a snail’s pace for the rest of the month as his fellow residents had exceeded the bandwidth from, oh and it really had to be didn’t it, downloading sci-fi programs.

Great. Just great.

He couldn’t even access Gmail. Things weren’t, to put it mildly, perfect on the technological communication front.

It is gradually resolving itself, but our morning/evening Skypes will, it seems, be forever be suffocated with problems. I am well aware that the mini WebStress inside of me, the child that desperately wants to kick and scream and throw, as my mother used to call it, an almighty paddy. She just wants to scream ‘its not fair’. But I can speak to him, and I am incredibly lucky.

It just isn’t as easy as I’d have liked to imagine. Its just something else I have to get my head around.

Maybe it is better this way. It almost feels like Skype is deliberately fighting against our communication urges to ensure that we don’t fall easily into those conversations where you end up arguing just to keep listening, keep hearing, keep being with them. All those misunderstandings we’ve so far been spared of because we haven’t been able to misunderstand anything.

And, to be honest, we’re both crap on the phone.

This way I have some beautiful emails that might never have been written, that would have been lost in a disregarded sentence that might never have formed because they were bulldozed by some unimportant note that finds its way into day to day conversation. This way I have something to read over and over, to immerse myself in. This way, I don’t have to have memories because I have physicalities. When I’m reading I don’t miss him because he’s there.

And this way I get to compose beautiful emails too, rather than desperately muttering ‘I miss yous’.