11. I don't know who woulda thought of it, but ultimate frisbee and SIP kinda go together

New Note 10

Ahoy.

For this post, I think I'll talk about a friend of mine that I first talked to while I was a senior in high school looking for colleges to apply to. My friend referred me to a friend on the ultimate frisbee team at Tufts because I was curious about what it was like for them. Our communication at first was entirely through email. I made the first contact, sending him a message where I basically introduced myself, telling him about how things were going in high school and what ultimate was like at our school.

At this point, I was very self-conscious of myself and everything I was saying because after all, I was talking to someone 4 years ahead of my in life and I was supposed to be seen as a delusional, overenthusiastic kid in high school at the budding apex of his life where he gets to see what college is really (supposedly) like.

Definitely felt the hyperpersonal theory kicking in, with some potential behavioral confirmation too. I immediately made a bunch of judgemental prejudices about myself and the person that I was talking too, long before I would even receive a reply from him. I thought I was going to be perceived as a weird little kid with no real understanding of what college was like, I was talking to a senior, ripe with almost 4 years of experience at the college level. Contrary to behavioral confirmation, I fought against this and tried to sound as down-to-earth and level-headed as I could.

When he replied, I learned that he was really chill and nonjudgmental. A lot of the perceptions that I feared and tried to fight against beforehand seemed silly at that point. I think this could be considered as a fast-paced SIP reaction. After communicating together a few times, I learned that this other kid wasn't as negative as I thought he could be (CFO too, almost). Our relationship grew more relaxed and I quickly forgot all those stupid predictions that I made. I started acting a little more naturally because I wasn't that worried anymore. This is similar to SIP theory in a way, because I felt coldness towards him at first and then this coldness eventually thawed, or defrosted or something.

When we finally met, our communication through email definitely proved to make things a little closer. We were brought together by ultimate and knowing a little bit about each other beforehand didn't hurt either. We tossed a few times with each other and it was great. I suppose this is a continuation of SIP theory because it was yet another occasion of communicating with each other, this time face to face, and every successive time, it grew friendlier and friendlier. Though we never met to talk too much, our relationship definitely evolved through phases of hyperpersonal and SIP effects.