Way back in September, for my blog post on McKenna’s relationship factors and Wallace’s attraction factors, I detailed an online relationship with a girl named “Jane”. In my first freshman semester at Cornell, we encountered each other through Facebook (similar music/movie tastes) and started a prolonged (two month long) series of instant-message conversations without ever meeting each other. When we finally had our first FtF encounter, a “date” which consisted of dinner and movie, the experience was pretty much quiet, subdued, and awkward. In my September 25th blog entry, I attributed this to lack of a romantic “spark” and—to quote my former self—“The Hyperpersonal aspect of each others lives was removed and I guess we just seemed less interesting to one another”. As it turns out, this relationship certainly did follow Walther’s Hyperpersonal model, and additionally, as it was a long-term relationship (two months is longer than Ramirez & Wang’s definition as a period of four-weeks), a disappointment effect was certainly carried out.
The Hyperpersonal element of the relationship existed from the beginning. By Jane’s decision to contact me based on my Facebook profile, she was judging me solely on limited CMC cues—in particular, my carefully selected “Favorite Movies” and “Favorite Music”. This limited perception based on conventional signals which I could potentially embellish and lie about (but I would never, of course…) must have led to an exaggerated, positive view of me. After initial IM contact, I must admit I was guilty of the same Hyperpersonal view. Seeing Jane’s relatable interests and (selectively self-chosen) attractive profile picture—this was before the days of photos on Facebook—I immediately had incentive to reciprocate IM contact.
As we continued to exchange IMs, Hyperpersonal effects increased as we got along very well; disclosing more and more about ourselves. However, as stated above, things were certainly different when we left virtuality. There was no obvious disappointment; but it just seemed that we were not as compatible or as interesting as we were when we chatted through IM. Obviously, I can only provide my side of the story, but Jane was much quieter and she seemed to act in a much more inhibited manner than that of her online self and I’m sure I did not live up to expectations either—via IM, we all have time to be witty and calculating in our interaction. Also, because we were chatting for so long without seeing each other FtF, our expectations were likely too high and so the disappointment factor was increased—just as Ramirez & Wang predicted via their third hypothesis.
1 comment:
Robert, your experience truly confirms Ramirez & Wang’s results of long-term associations in CMC being more negative and uncertainty provoking in modality switching. It’s interesting how people deal with the influx of cues when leaving virtuality. Maybe “Jane” became more withdrawn because she had less control in the FtF environment so it caused her to behave in the inhibited manner you described. Your experience also applies to SIDE in that you two were initially attracted to each other from the in group similarities (favorite music, movies, etc.) displayed in your profile, but when you left CMC, you guys became individuated and differentiation occurred.
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