You've Got Mail

We just finished watching You've Got Mail in class; we watched it as a way to see many of the concepts we have covered so far in action, both successfully and not-so-successfully.  I have to admit that I really do love this movie. Part of that is my sentimental attachment to the movie.  I first saw this movie with my high school boyfriend, now husband.  Since we went to separate high schools in different towns, we were only able to see each other on the weekends, if even that often.  Most of our communication was through AOL (American On Line) email and messaging.  The words "You've Got Mail" made my heart skip a beat, and if I heard the chime of AOL Messenger, I often found myself holding my breath until I saw if it was him or not.  There was so much that was said through those that really moved us along the different stages of relationships (covered in a later chapter). I often wonder if we would have been nearly as comfortable talking face-to-face as we were thorugh computer screens.

Anyway, the point that I am trying to make is that I've seen this movie many times over the years, and this time while listening and watching it, a quote really stood out to me:

The odd thing about this form of communication is that you're more likely to talk about nothing than something. But I just want to say that all this nothing has meant more to me than so many somethings. 

That is exactly how I felt about the early communication of our relationship. Sure, there was some self-disclosure, but a lot of it was sharing what we did, saw, and thought each day and then reflecting on that with each other and making associations to things we could relate to.  To someone else, the words and thoughts we exchanged would have been a whole lot of "nothing," but to us, it was something.

Another thought I had was, "Wow. Technology and how we communicate as a society has really changed since 1998."  I see that as a good and bad thing.