Stalking Our Way to Best Friends

Thinking back to the way I met my freshman year roommate – who turned out to be one of my best friends and my roommate again this year – I can distinctly remember leaving virtuality and meeting her in person for the first time. My best friend from summer camp had told me that Melissa and I just had to be roommates at Cornell, and, seeing as this was my best friend speaking, I knew she’d be right. Though Melissa and I at first interacted via CMC only, we ultimately met in person and grew closer by the day. Using the Uncertainty Reduction Theory (Berger & Calabrese, 1976) to explain our growing fondness for one another, I will explain how leaving virtuality was, for us, a great success.

According to URT, the uncertainty reduction process leads to affinity or attraction. At first, all I knew about my roommate from our mutual friend was her name, where she was from and some people she knew. Next, I stalked her a little. We became Facebook friends and I checked out her interests, music tastes and pictures. I asked my friend to tell me as much as she could about my roomie-to-be, and ultimately, we started talking online regularly. I liked her more each time we spoke and I found us to be more similar to one another, and anticipated meeting her in person as I knew we were bound to have a fantastic freshman year together.

Finally, on the way up to visit Cornell for a weekend in the spring of our senior year of high school, Melissa and I met. We were right in all we had thought about one another and continued to discover similarities between us all weekend. From that point on, both our CMC and FtF interactions increased. We kept in touch and made plans, and by the time we got to school we were already great friends.

As the Uncertainty Reduction Theory says, leaving virtuality was highly positive for Melissa and I. We had developed an in-depth relationship via the CMC media and successfully moved it to the real world. The more we knew about one another, the more we wanted to know and the more we spent time with each other. Thus, the theory was correct in assuming that the process of reducing uncertainty is beneficial both online and off!