Emotional Megaphone

People seek a way to express their strong emotions. A release valve. And sometimes they find an emotional megaphone.   Thanks to modern computer technology a megaphone may be used over long distances, across continents and oceans. Megaphone is not a  tool of dialogue, it goes without saying.

She said, wrote on a computer keyboard "We must talk." I answered, also via a keyboard, "Talk, I'm listening."  Some people, even in face to face encounters, will approach you to say  "We need to talk" and wait for your answer, assent, or god knows what. Well, we're talking already, why the prelude?  And so, I answered "Talk, I'm listening."  But that's not what she had in mind. "Call me on Skype!" she demanded in Arial font.  Skype is a computer program, one of several such programs available,  which allow people to communicate face to face across distances using a computer camera and microphone. A visual telephone.  Listen to the other person speak while staring at his pimples, bad teeth, thinning hair, and judging his reactions to what you say by studying the pattern of his blinking.

I don't recall how I came to suspect what was up, it all happened a long time ago, I do remember that there were no other hints, but I decided that it would be prudent to avoid a face to screen confrontation, and I wrote that the camera of my computer wasn't operational, please write instead.   And she did.

She wrote on Skype, which can be used to pass written messages, awkwardly but it is possible, so why not use e-mail?!  And it was as I had anticipated a stream of angry  accusations, threats, warnings, all in semi-literate sentences, from this highly educated family member who took upon herself to judge my behaviour in matters which did not concern her, or affect her in any way, and was (my behaviour) innocuous, moral and perfectly legal.    I didn't respond, knowing that an emotional megaphone can only be provoked into greater fury if one only peeps a shy reply.

That was only a beginning, a prelude to a longer saga which is itself  a sad story for another occasion.