My good buddy in high school started going out with a girl and the relationship started online. It's a pretty convoluted story, but basically the girl was going out with another guy in our high school, and she had seen my buddy from afar, and thought he was "adorable." Those are her words, not mine, and we still give my buddy crap for it to this day. Either way, when she and her then boyfriend broke up, she got my buddy's aim screenname and initiated a relationship that way. There had never been any face to face interaction before, and he actually had no idea who she was before they started interacting on aim. They kept up this aim interaction for a little over a month, and then finally at the beginning of the summer they decided to meet up. In their online interactions they had exchanged pictures of each other (these were the pre-facebook days)and gotten to know each other pretty well, mostly through talking about mutual friends and music. I remember him telling me that when he talked to the girl online, she seemed very funny and sarcastic, and he was also shocked at how she would not use typical short hand IM slang and spelling like wut up or lol, but instead made a point of typing very eloquently. When they met in person, she obviously had a very extensive vocabulary, and was a very smart girl, but didn't come off as pompous and full of herself as he thought she would. Apparently, they hit it off great because they ended up dating for 2 years.
I think this goes against Ramirez and Wang's idea that switching from cmc to ftf can cause negative views of a person because expectations were violated. In this case, the long term interaction was not evaluated negatively, and actually a ftf meeting increased the level of attraction because she was not as pompous as he thought she would be. From everything I've heard, there was little awkwardness even from the beginning. I think this falls further in line with the Uncertainty Reduction Theory from Berger and Calabrese. When they interacted online, they disclosed enough information, and this increased the level of intimacy, which led to an increased level of attraction. The information and high degree of self disclosure online led to a positive interaction and high self disclosure in face to face. It also probably helped that there was not a high level of deception in their photos.
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2 comments:
Hi Carlos-
What an inspiring story! I have always been a bit cautious of meeting people and developing relationships solely in CMC. I found it interesting that your friend thought the girl would be pompous because she didn’t using AIM slang. I also do not use internet slang because when I did, I started seeing it show up in the papers I wrote in high school. I made the choice to return back to using correct English. Maybe that is why the girl decided not to use internet slang?
I too agree that your example disproves Wang and Ramirez’s findings and more closely aligns with the Uncertainty Reduction Theory. It sounds like they had a lot of time to disclose significant amounts of information allowing them to develop a strong, positive relationship online. The fact that there was not a high level of deception in their photos really helped them transition their relationship from CMC to FtF as looks are the first thing people notice when meeting in person.
The Uncertainty Reduction Theory is a really good fit for this example, as it is one of the few theories that predicts a positive outcome. Also, you clearly explained the ways your friends' uncertainty was reduced as the relationship progressed. The fact that the relationship was closer to long-term while it was online and they excanged pretty accurate pictures also probably helped reduce a lot of the awkwardness from the initial FtF meeting.
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