Typing versus shouting

Last night the girlfriend and I had a deep and serious conversation that bordered on a fight over IM and when I discussed its particulars with Norwaylass today the issue of whether it can count as our First Fight or not was brought up (by me of course, I'm always interested in statistics). Now the thing is that we may well have had a first fight already and I just didn't perceive it as such, should really ask miss girlfriend about it.

Now there's no doubt the whole ordeal would have been a fight had it happened face to face, there was just so much pent up stuff flying around that surely one of us at some point would break into uncivil discort or worse. But it happened over IM where everything is rather safe and impersonal to an extent. So was it a fight or was it just a bitter argument? The conundrum is deeper than it might seem at first glance because it strikes right at the core of IM versus face-to-face.

Personally I've grown so used to IM that I find typing out my words easier and more natural than saying them. I don't like talking, talking makes me nervous and very self-conscious because it feels odd how my lips move when I say something ... typing is just so much more natural. But on the other hand typing doesn't convey emotion as well and body language is very important in fights and interpersonal relationships, however well I've grown used to deciphering the body language of text, yes it does exist, the problem is always on the other end. Are they using the same methodology to convey emotion through text? Is the other person articulate enough to properly convey what they're feeling through text? It feels sometimes people have a hard time even putting their thoughts into words without aide of subconscious signals, so what hope is there for such people to ever put them into writing properly?

Well I wouldn't know, but I do know other things. We need to talk more, the girlfriend and I, we need to assume less, we need to say what's bothering us instead of always looking out to keeping the other person happy, we need to be more direct in our dealings with each other and most of all we need more honesty and less of the unfun kind of games if we are to have any hope of making it for as long as we'd like it to.

Another conclusion I've drawn for the whole thing is that, still, inexplicably to me, making people upset is tremendously fun.