my secret addiction

My secret addiction isn't really a secret, if you read my comments on blogs, or my Facebook posts, Twitter posts, Instagram posts, Path posts, G+ posts, etc.  The list goes on ad nauseum because my addiction is tied to my fingers, which are tied to my brain.  

I am addicted to smileys.  I use them at the end of most comments I make, and when I send messages, or chat online, there is usually a smiley just waiting to pop from my brain down through my fingers and hit the keyboard.


It isn't that I am attached to smileys.  I used them in moderation for many years.  But since I began blogging, and reading other blogs, I see that many times it is hard for a person to convey how they are reacting to what they read.  Being a sensitive type, I figured that adding a smiley to my comments and posts would soften what I was saying.  If I was trying to amuse, then it would let the reader know that I was attempting humor.  If it was a comment that was meant to give guidance or advice, then a smiley would soften the blow.


As time went on, the smileys started multiplying.  Soon I was adding them to every reply, every comment.  That was when I realized I had an addiction.


What I also had was lack of confidence in the words I wrote.  I have often heard people say that people who curse a lot do it because they have a small vocabulary (ok, I do favor a %*$# here and there, and my vocabulary is extensive, so I don't necessarily agree with that).  I also used to tell Wretch, when she was a teenager and ended every sentence with "you know" that, no I didn't know, and those two words were fillers.  


Smileys are fillers.  At least when you end most sentences with them they are.  So should I try to wean myself off of them, and replace them with what?  Other emoticons?  (Smileys even have a class of their own, called emoticons, a distinction not given to just any type of texting.)


I could try different faces.  After all, even I don't smile all the time.
  
Frown :-(
Very Happy  :-))
Angry :-|| (although I seldom am)
Crying :'-(  
Tears of Happiness :')
Horror, disgust, great dismay D-': (lean right to look at this one)
Shock :-O


Or maybe I should just let my words stand as they are, alone and unsupported by an emoticon that will forever be grinning at the reader.


It's going to be an uphill battle.  For the artist in me that wants to draw words, emoticons come the closest to achieving that.  For the writer in me, I know it is a weakness.  So maybe I will start by tapering off.


One :D at a time.  :D

...life is good. ~cath :-D
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