Writing can help sometimes. Totally. But it’s important to compare writing with the alternatives.
Writing is painfully slow and requires loads of work. An example of this is the knowledge management literature: trying to encode an expert’s knowledge at some point becomes too expensive. That’s why working alongside masters of a discipline is so special: they know things that are hard to put into writing.
Writing is also prone to mistakes. Businesses have learned this the hard way in the last half-a-century. Some tech businesses insisted that it was a matter of learning to write well. “Use this method of writing requirements”. “Use this framework for writing specifications”. But miscommunication still happened. Faced with this problem, Kent Beck and Jeff Patton found that what works most efficiently is for people to use narrative to talk about the problems at hand. In this context, documentation is useful to the extent that it helps in conversation.
There’s also the fact that writing is a very context-poor method of communication. When talking, you’ve got much more to pick up on: the speed of the words, the spacing between the words, the pitch, the eyes, the mouth, the eyebrows, the head tilt, the hand positions, the foot positions, the general stance, etc. Additionally, when talking you can go back and forth, identifying and correcting misunderstandings much faster than with text.
On top of that is the fact that OP is talking about a romantic context. This changes things a bit. This is the purview of psychology. Psychology also has a similar history to business: they both went from believing it’s a matter of teaching people to find the most precise technical language to believing it’s a matter of having conversations. But the conversations in business are not the same as in romance.
Romance requires you to care about someone else’s vulnerability and for you to open up to them. And this is the most powerful way of reassuring both of you and being securely attached. This is the insight of emotion-focused therapy.
So that’s how I see writing.
It can contribute to shared meaning, but it requires plenty of work and yet it consistently leads to misunderstandings. These misunderstandings can be dealt with faster with conversation. If the context of the conversation is romantic, the most important thing someone can do is open up to their partners and care for their partners’ vulnerability.
Of course, what I like about your comment is that it recognizes the limitations of text. And, of course, if used well, it can help.
Writing can help sometimes. Totally. But it’s important to compare writing with the alternatives.
Writing is painfully slow and requires loads of work. An example of this is the knowledge management literature: trying to encode an expert’s knowledge at some point becomes too expensive. That’s why working alongside masters of a discipline is so special: they know things that are hard to put into writing.
Writing is also prone to mistakes. Businesses have learned this the hard way in the last half-a-century. Some tech businesses insisted that it was a matter of learning to write well. “Use this method of writing requirements”. “Use this framework for writing specifications”. But miscommunication still happened. Faced with this problem, Kent Beck and Jeff Patton found that what works most efficiently is for people to use narrative to talk about the problems at hand. In this context, documentation is useful to the extent that it helps in conversation.
There’s also the fact that writing is a very context-poor method of communication. When talking, you’ve got much more to pick up on: the speed of the words, the spacing between the words, the pitch, the eyes, the mouth, the eyebrows, the head tilt, the hand positions, the foot positions, the general stance, etc. Additionally, when talking you can go back and forth, identifying and correcting misunderstandings much faster than with text.
On top of that is the fact that OP is talking about a romantic context. This changes things a bit. This is the purview of psychology. Psychology also has a similar history to business: they both went from believing it’s a matter of teaching people to find the most precise technical language to believing it’s a matter of having conversations. But the conversations in business are not the same as in romance.
Romance requires you to care about someone else’s vulnerability and for you to open up to them. And this is the most powerful way of reassuring both of you and being securely attached. This is the insight of emotion-focused therapy.
So that’s how I see writing.
It can contribute to shared meaning, but it requires plenty of work and yet it consistently leads to misunderstandings. These misunderstandings can be dealt with faster with conversation. If the context of the conversation is romantic, the most important thing someone can do is open up to their partners and care for their partners’ vulnerability.
Of course, what I like about your comment is that it recognizes the limitations of text. And, of course, if used well, it can help.