Brief Encounters of the Virtual Kind
Mixtapes, Missed Signals and the Distance Between Us
Contrary to what the genre of science-fiction would have us believe, there’s a reason aliens never land and say, 'Take me to your leader.' They’ve been monitoring Earth - probably via a galactic Ring doorbell - and have concluded that human communication is, at best, perplexing.
From passive-aggressive email sign-offs (‘Kind Regards’, ‘Per my last email’) to cryptic WhatsApp replies (‘K’), and politicians who speak fluent jargon but couldn’t order a sandwich without a press release, it’s a miracle we manage to understand each other at all.
I studied Media & Communications at university many years ago, hoping to become a journalist. That didn’t quite pan out, but I remain fascinated by the many ways we attempt - and often fail - to connect. Not just across time, as telegrams gave way to TikTok, but across individual differences. The truth is, we’re all limited by our own settings. Highly intelligent people can struggle to speak plainly, and those who are illiterate, deaf, or neurodivergent often invent more expressive, original ways to connect than the rest of us.
Perhaps that’s no surprise. Long before written language, humans communicated through cave paintings, hand gestures, and smoke signals - simple, visual cues to express ourselves. And yet, after centuries of evolving through alphabets, printing presses, and keyboards, we’ve come full circle. Emojis, GIFs, and memes now do much of the heavy lifting - modern-day hieroglyphs for our digital tribes.
The tools we use reveal as much about us as the messages themselves. My weapon of choice is the written word, mainly because my brain does a better job of ‘triaging’ - sorting and organising - what I want to say in the space between pen and paper. I’m fine with public speaking, but I often find myself in the shower, mentally replaying discussions and kicking myself for missing the chance to say something more articulate. It doesn’t help that I seem to have a natural ceiling on vocal volume. Softly spoken by default, when I really want to get my point across, I have to shout to be heard - which often gets misread as me being 'hot-headed' or 'angry.'
But I wasn’t always so reluctant to speak. I’m from the generation that spent hours glued to the hallway phone, dissecting the previous night out - who got off with who, who said what - while simultaneously resenting the very same landline for letting the outside world in. Cold callers, double glazing salesmen, the occasional dirty perv, and a guy I once regretted giving my number to, who, undeterred when I lied told him I was moving to Manchester for six months, rang on the exact day he presumed I’d returned. More of that story here...
So, the arrival of the mobile phone in the late ’90s felt like liberation. No more would I have this endless cycle of conversation with my parents (God love them):
Me: If so-and-so calls for me, can you please tell them I’m out?
Them: Out where?
Me: It doesn’t matter - just out.
Them: But what if they ask?
Me: They won’t. Just say I’m out and you’ll pass on the message.
Them: What about the shops? Shall I say you’re at the shops?
Repeat to fade.
As the years went by, the tools kept evolving, but that’s not to say I didn’t find different ways to communicate my feelings. Whereas once lovers pined by letter, waiting weeks for scented scraps of longing, I conveyed my desires through the power of the mixtape. Although I provided this service for friends, more so in a bid to ensure we had something decent to listen to when bombing about in their array of cars, more often than not, these tapes were for my objects of desire.
The process was painstaking, as considerable time was spent choosing the songs I felt best conveyed my depth of feeling for the recipient. However, the one constant on every mixtape I ever made was a song by Definition of Sound called, Wear Your Love Like Heaven.
If you’ve not heard this, I pity and envy you in equal measure. Pity, because up until this moment, you’ve lost out on 3 minutes 44 seconds of pure auditory joy. Envy, because you can now listen to and adore the song, maybe half as much as I do. If the lucky recipient of one of these ‘Shazza Mixtapes’ didn’t appreciate this particular banger, I’d cast that philistine adrift. It was my compatibility test. Never mind star signs, we had to be aligned musically, for our relationship to work.
Sometime later, I put together a mixtape for my now-husband, albeit through Spotify. We were tentatively reconnecting, uncertain, each waiting for the other to show their hand first. Looking back, I realise my attempt at subtlety was about as effective as using a foghorn in a monastery, with songs on the list including With or Without You by U2, I Second That Emotion by Smokey Robinson, and You’re the One for Me, Fatty by The Smiths - clearly indicating a STRONG LIKE. Fortunately, the feeling was mutual, a realisation that dawned as he added his own tracks to our collaborative playlist. It proved that music, even when we stumble through its signals like clueless DJs, has this uncanny ability to bridge unspoken sentiments.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, advancements in technology should have reinforced an easy connection, but we all found ourselves navigating new challenges. Conversations turned into scoreboards. Who left who on read? Who replied the fastest? We now live in a world where it’s considered passive-aggressive if you don’t put a kiss at the end of every text.
I was forced to confront my own habits recently when we took my mum out for cream tea at a lovely country café. The manager serving us, as it turned out, was deaf. Suddenly, my usual reliance on words, spoken quickly and often half-formed, wasn’t going to cut it. The conversation had to shift. It became more visual, more thoughtful, and oddly, more genuine. Gestures, eye contact, and patience took over, culminating in joyous hugs at the end. It reminded me that communication isn’t just about getting the words out - it’s about making sure they land, that they’re actually received. In that moment, it felt like a purer exchange.
The experience stuck with me. Maybe we’ve built all these channels - texting, emailing, instant messaging - because we think they make connection easier, but often they just make it more convenient to disconnect.
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. Some connections have flourished because of these new tools. I’m particularly reliant on WhatsApp and FaceTime, and can’t imagine moving to the other side of the world without the ability to call and speak to loved ones at any given time. Long-distance friendships, virtual communities, the quiet lifelines of group chats that have kept people afloat during their darkest days - it’s never been easier to send someone a quick note that says, 'I’m thinking of you.' My stepkids are young adults with busy lives, so I admit to regularly sending memes - mostly talking cats, dogs, and ‘Top Ten Places to Drink Guinness’ to my stepson.
Still, for all these new channels, something essential seems to have slipped away. Maybe we’ve mistaken constant availability for genuine connection. Social media promised to bring us closer, but somewhere along the way it became a breeding ground for trolls, pile-ons, and drive-by outrage. We’ve never had more ways to reach each other, yet we’ve created more distance where there used to be presence - so much so, it can sometimes feel like we’re not just disconnected, but living on entirely different planets.
Perhaps the aliens saw all this play out and decided they’d pass. Imagine watching us from a safe distance - seeing humans ghosting one another, arguing with bots, and calling people out for not adding a kiss at the end of a text. Honestly, if I were them, I wouldn’t land either. I’d just keep quietly updating my galactic Ring doorbell, musing at our miscommunications, while kicking back and listening to Wear Your Love Like Heaven by Definition of Sound.
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Thank-you to those who connected with my previous piece, below. I had a lot of fun writing it!
So much wisdom in this. There are so many ways to communicate these days that I think it is actually making communication harder, not easier. Ironic. x
(I hope you noticed the kiss! 😆)
I hope they do land and offer to take me with them 🤣🤣