For a period of time extending a little over a year when I was in Middle School, I developed a series of online relationships in an asychronous discussion forum. I had performed a Google search on one of my favorite artists at that time (around the year 2000-2001), Eminem and stumbled upon an online community devoted to posting and discussing any news related item related to Eminem, from opinion on his album to his personal life. However, as the people who posted in the forum became "regulars", the discussion evolved to become more intimate and personal forms of communication. After a few months of board discussion, a close group of friends was formed between myself and the users of the forum. We all knew each other's personalities, life stories, feelings and opinions on certain topics. On a daily basis, we exchanged our stories and views on family, relationships, entertainment, love and daily life. Like any group of friends we had a clown, the honesty laden girl, the emotional attention-getter, the guy with the sarcastic dry sense of humor, the romantic, the motherly figure, the intellectual, the angsty teenage girl, the insecure recluse, the obsessed tennybopper, the flirt, and the mediator. We each occupied our own niche, and as a middle schooler who couldn't find her niche, I felt like I had found mine on this message board.
Within the message board, I came to be particularly interested in a member of our little community-- a poster by the name of Jeno (his online username was XpliCit). He was two years older than I was, and from England. What really drew me towards him was his cynical sense of humor. When new posters wrote in the forum, we all gave them a hard time as "newbies" and judged them harshly, but Jeno was particularly caustically witty. I suppose that as a middle schooler, I was subjected to harsh judgment in the face-to-face environment at school, but seeing others online being subjected to Jeno's razor-sharp humor gave me a prime sense of satisfaction. His crafty insults also contained a fair amount of British slang, which I found to be even more charming.
Although common ground, according to Wallace (which is defined as having mutually shared beliefs, experiences, characteristics) is a factor in attraction, I found I didn't have much common ground with Jeno. I don't profess to having a dry sense of humor, I am of different religion and live thousands of miles away, and I have a different taste altogether in music, which was the main topic of dicussion. In the CMC environment, however, I found that at least two of Wallace's relationship factors applied.
Towards the middle of our online aquaintance, Jeno posted his pictures up on the message board for everyone to see. This fits in with what Wallace describes as the CMC model of "getting to know" the person before evaluating their physical attractiveness. I found Jeno to look like a hybrid of Josh Harnett and Ben Affleck, which was a large factor in attraction. The pictures he posted were of low quality and featured him with angry expressions on his face. The online pictures definitely fit in with the Hyperpersonal Model. Within the Model, selective self-presentation says that we emphasize the positive traits we have and tone down the negative. Jeno could have probably decided in his pictures to post which ones he felt he looked attractive in. Also, as part of the Hyperpersonal Model, Behavioral Confirmation states that we try to behave the way people think of us as. Since most posters viewed him as the 'big bad wolf', Jeno posted pictures he thought reflected this and in turn confirmed my impression of him.
Another factor of Wallace's that contributed to my fondness for Jeno was proximity. Proximity online states that the more a person grows to be familiar with another person due to shared interaction space, the more they become attracted to that person. Since I visited the forum at least a few times a week, I saw Jeno's postings and interacted with him as well as the other users quite frequently. This allowed me to get to know him through time, and as looking at what he had to say became part of my weekly routine, my attraction grew. The more I visited the forum, the more I grew accustomed to his sense of humor and appreciated him more.
After a year or so within my message board community I realized that Face-to-Face relationships gave me more satisfaction than CMC, so I officially signed off the message board and lost contact with Jeno. However, my year spent on the message board truly applies to what we are learning in class about relationship development and facilitation online. I wonder if any of them, especially Jeno, still talk on that forum. If any of them happen to google 'Jeno' and 'XpliCit' and stumble upon this blog, I want to say HI! That period of time I spent getting acquainted with strangers online is the reason I was intrigued to take this course. I hope to apply my online experience there with further behavioral and psychological theories we will learn .
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