5.1 AIM chatting was just the start

For this assignment I analyzed a special relationship I have with a girl here at Cornell; lets call her K. During the beginning phases of my relationship with K, I was scared to mess it up and so I used a lot of AIM chatting and facebook messaging. Through this mediated communication I was able to develop a healthy relationship with K and was able to get to know her better. After learning about McKenna’s relationship facilitation factors, I knew that Identifiability and Removal of gating features assisted the development of my relationship with K

Identifiability is a mean for more self disclosure over a CMC media which eventually leads to a better relationship development. One can be identifiable or anonymous and both of these factors will lead to higher self disclosure. Over CMC, when you have visual anonymity, you are able to have a high private self-awareness and low public self-awarness, which facilitate in increasing self disclosure. In my case, since I knew K and had her as my facebook friend, I was more identifiable and this lead to more self disclosure, which in turn, enhanced my relationship with her. We were able to have conversations about our facebook interests, friends and even new photos posted. K, being a big facebook fan (a.k.a stalker) definitely spurred my interest in this site and even taught me some new tricks to ‘stalk’. Furthermore, by AIM chatting with K during the first couple of weeks of our relationship, I was able to stay visually anonymous and have better conversations without any awkward pauses.

McKenna’s other relationship facilitation factor, Removal of Gating features, also gave me a chance to improve my relationship. Gates in a relationship can be physical attractiveness, master status cues (race, stigma, disability), and shyness or social anxiety. These ‘gates’ are open to attractive and outgoing people, however, they are closed to less attractive or less socially skilled people. However, in AIM and text based chatting, since you cannot see the other person and cannot observe them interact with peers, these gating features are removed. In my case with K, I was able to be less shy on AIM and could easily avert the awkward pauses by saying ‘brb’ or ‘hold on’. However, since we were both facebook friends and used to live in the same dorm, she already knew what I looked like and how I performed in social situations. My shyness was taken away through AIM chatting and Mckenna’s relationship factor defiantly worked to improve my relationship.

After the couple weeks of AIM conversations, I finally decided to call her and ask her out to coffee. To my surprise she rejected me, and a couple of days later, while I was cursing her off in front of my friends, she called me back and re-scheduled our date. I am glad to say that the first few weeks of AIM chatting helped me break the ice and I was able to have a decent conversation with K.