Relationship Description
Once upon a time, a time long before Facebook, there was AOL where I met nYcxBoi, my online boyfriend. Our four year relationship started in a chatroom in high school. We would email at night and IM during the day. We engaged in light flirting by leaving each other quotes on our away messages and when we would have serious conversations I would hold onto my mouse as if I was holding his hand. He attached a model-like picture of himself once but I never got to send mine because I was waiting to lose weight. He ended up never seeing a picture and once we began dating people from the non-online space, we grew apart.
Analysis
Although early CFO studies suggest that the lack of cues in CMC would lead to neutral and cold relationships, the naturally-formed relationship described show that warm and meaningful ones could form over time. My experience can be explained using McKenna’s approach, which shows how relationship facilitation factors such as identifiability and removal of gating features allow for relationship development.
The identifiability factor suggests that because people are anonymous online, it would increase self-disclosure (revealing information that is not publicly known), which would then lead to relationship development (“Stranger in the Train Effect”). I felt comfortable opening up to him because he was faceless and when I did, he would reciprocate. I was also comfortable because we were visually anonymous. According to Joinson, increased private awareness and decreased public awareness leads to self-disclosure. This means that because we were physically alone when conversing we did not have to worry about how we looked, which then allowed us to concentrate more on ourselves and our feelings. By remaining anonymous, we disclosed more information, the exchange deepened, and we were able to have an intimate relationship.
Another factor that played a great role is the removal of gating features (physical attractiveness, social anxiety etc.), which increases the chances of forming a CMC relationship. It refers to a unique characteristic of online attraction in which the sequence of attraction is reversed online because one gets to know the person first and then becomes attracted rather than vice-versa. This means that if we had first met ftf and he did not find me physically attractive, there is the chance that he would not have taken time to get to know me. It also may explain why I found him physically attractive when he sent a picture after a couple of months of talking.
While McKenna’s factors explain why we were able to form a fantasized and idealized relationship through a lean media, I wonder if it would if we would have made it through a richer media. Perhaps just as our fairytale relationship started online, it was supposed to end happily on AOL as well.
Comment 1
Comm 245 Blue: 5.1 Distance makes the Heart Grow Fonder??
Comment 2
Comm 245 Blue: 5 Is an Online wedding adultery?
2 comments:
Lina,
I found it interesting how you mentioned that since you two did not see each other face to face, the environment was conducive to increased self-disclosure. I can see how that might play out because there is no longer the fear of being judged. It is sad but like you said, if he would have seen a picture of you and decided that he was not attracted to you, then the relationship might not have developed at all.
However, my question is since you saw a picture of him a few months in, what impact does that have on your theory. In a sense, he was not as anonymous to you because you could place a face with him. However, from his perspective you still were faceless. Do you think that having viewed a picture of him had any effect on your self-disclosure? Also, do you think that social anxiety may have been affected as well. I was thinking that if you found him really attractive, but did not feel like he would find you as attractive physically, it led to you increasingly trying to portray yourself as equally attractive through mediated communication?
This is an interesting story, and I’m truly surprised by how intimate the two of you were able to get without ever having met face-to-face. Without the gating feature of physical appearance and with decreased public awareness, however, I can see why it is might be so easy to open up – there’s really no threat of rejection. Do you think the relationship would’ve made it if it had been started in person?
I’m curious as to the one-sided exchange of photos. I feel that your not sending a picture might have sent some sort of message to your partner. I wonder how he perceived the action and if it had any effects on his perception of you. In addition, how did your perceptions of him change once you knew what he looked like? Positively or negatively? Not at all? Because the sequence of attraction is reversed online, it might be interesting to know how attractive you might have rated your partner given no online history.
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