Subtext Subtleties

A funny thing keeps happening to me. Whenever I am reading an email, a blog post, or conversing with someone online, I can evoke within me a fair idea of what general emotions they are experiencing.

I seem to become a mimic, sharing their highs and sharing their lows. I can switch it on and off, not even aware in the slightest that someone has turned from a friend to an enemy in the blink of a neuron.

I was more surprised that many of my peers, my parents, and various other adults in my life could not do this than anything else as a teenager. I don't think I'm, as you say, talented and I most certainly don't talk to the dead.

People often boggle at how well I handle my interoffice email politicing. Personally, I'm neither affluent or prone to take the lead. Time after time, however, my manager has remarked on how well I handle the angry, the upset, the zealous and the happy communications that float past my inbox.

Again, it was a case of can't everyone do this?

The answer, it appears, is a resounding no. Or at least, not very well and not that often. Most people have heard the word that is used to describe this, but wouldn't know what it is. It's subtext. It's the deft touch in every word, chosen for it's emotional weighting and saying what does not need to be said.

This is a key element of fictional writing that any author must embrace. Actors, even artists, strive to include subtext within their works - evoking some kind of blunt emotional response that is hard to articulate in the common man. It's what the tired violin track in every movie is meant to do when someone dies, it's the applause sign for tears. Subtext can be used and abused, a canned laughter of emotional response.

What happened today, to inspire this piece of writing, was exactly that: Subtext Abuse. Much to my dismay, I'm a subtext abuser. This happens when I'm emotional - I can write the most impersonally worded email in the world; yet it still slices like broken glass.
I'm not a bitch, as it is more commonly known. These people are Subtext Abusers by implication and daring. They flaunt their ability to imply meaning that was never said by attacking people in such a resounding way that everyone can see it.

I'm a different case. I'm a subtle subtext abuser. Some kind of literary cat burgular, deft, swift and hard to tell exactly what has happened.

Why do I harp on at such length about my own virtues (if this is even what they are)? It's because of work. Something had not been going right, and I had made assumptions about how-things-should-work. Since they were not working (which was a puzzle), and I suspected the party involved had something to gain from annoying us, this had me peeved.
When they finally wanted me to fax something - on a dead tree, I mean really - I sent them an email requesting they transfer some domain names for me.
Days went by, and nothing happened.
Finally I caved, and picked up the telephone. The first words out of the person in charge's mouth were I feel very insulted by the tone of your fax.
Score one, Daniel.
I looked back, at the record of the fax. I'd thrown in the boilerplate behind covering, and I identified the one line that cut so deep. This has inconvienced us to a fair degree.

Implication: This isn't my fault, it's yours, you've failed to live up to expectations. Perhaps you weren't hugged enough as a child. Perhaps you were an orphan.

I managed to think quick and cover it with an explanation - not an apology, so the barb is still there.

Now that I've taken a moment to reflect on it, I've realised why it cut so deep. The other party, who is in IT, therefore a smart individual, is highly affected by the slightest of insults. He's another version of me, but with enough balls to come outright and confront it.

All in all, this little incident has knocked me for a loop: you are not alone in the world. He's no author, artist, or anyone who should need subtext comprehension to survive, but he's got it - because, like me, he spends all day reading, thinking, inferring.

But mostly, I've found my niche. Subtext is my weapon of choice. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword, and right now (if you couldn't already guess) I'm feeling a whole lot of something.

Smug.