of punctuations & emoticons

have you ever considered the vast difference in the ways that men & women interpret mobile text messages? and sometimes, even email messages. but it's more pronounced in the case of text messages, because the writer usually doesn't have the time or simply just doesn't further elaborate what he/she is trying to convey.

how many times have you sat with your girlfriend (i'm addressing the female population now), mulling over the latest string of text messages or just one single text message that received from a fella? this fella is usually someone the said girlfriend is keen in, or has at least some vague interest in.

you'd mull over every choice of word, punctuation, emoticon (or lack of)... the written word, when in short, concise messages, can be interpreted in so many ways. and punctuation alone can make so much difference.

for example,
1. what are you thinking of [no punctuation; probably neutral; possibly in response to another question, like, 'where do you want to have dinner?']
2. what are you thinking of? [with a question mark; so can be a sincere question, or a cheeky, mischievious one, especially if coupled with any of these emoticons-- :) :-) ;) :P ;P... you get the drift]
3. what are you thinking of?? [with 2 (sometimes more) question marks; may convey confusion, accusation, incredulity, etc, depending on what preceeded the message]

so, see-- there are so many ways things can be interpreted. and it's all subjective. and we have a choice to take it at face value, or choose to read between the lines (although, sometimes there are no lines at all, just line; haha) and find some 'hidden' meaning that may not even be there in the first place.

but men-- they're different, generally speaking. they don't care if there's punctuation or not. they don't care if you put in that smiley emoticon or left it out. it would help them decipher your mood for the day, but hell, it wouldn't kill them if there isn't any. for the women (not all lah), if they don't see a cutesy emoticon in the message, their mind would start to race and 2 dozen questions will start popping up in their heads-- is he angry? is he upset? is he unwell? is he so busy that he can't take 1 second more to add in that bloody emoticon? who's he with? what did i do wrong? does he not care anymore? does he not love me anymore?

are you guilty of that? or know someone who is? i know i am someone who reads way too much into messages-- especially from people i'm interested in. and i'm a keen observer. e.g. if guy X usually messages using T9/predictive text messaging, then the first word, and the word immediately after a full-stop would be have a capital first letter. so if the first word of the message didn't come with a capital first letter, but the words immediately after a full-stop does, then i'd know that he had to revise his message before sending to me. which means that he probably has something that he doesn't want to/dare to say to me, or he changed his mind along the way. something like that. i have a lot of other theories & observations too, but i'll leave those as my little secrets.

muahahahaha....

yes, so i'm a little weird. i've warned you already, right up there with the title of my blog. i'm a little outta touch, a little insane... ;)