In most chat rooms, it is not difficult to convince people to engage in a private chat as long as my "nick" contains some reference to my gender. I considered using a name that was a little more suggestive and sexually inviting in order to bait a target more easily, but I decided that it wasn’t worth the few seconds I would save with a more neutral name; I would waste just as much time fighting off several windows with variations of “Hey, babe…wanna cyber?” Still high off the University of Georgia’s defeat of Oklahoma State this past Saturday, I finally chose the nickname “DawgGirl300.”

At last, I got a response from a male called “Normul Purson.” I asked him, “ASL?” and from his answer, I instantly decided that he was most likely a little bit socially awkward. “23/m/Republic of Alaska,” he answered. Over the next few minutes, he tried to change his age to 19, then 31. He argued with me when I insisted that Alaska is in fact a state, not a Communist nation, as he claimed it to be. He claimed to be a heart surgeon, and he started throwing (what would be in a face to face situation) very insulting names and adjectives my way when I challenged that very few twenty three-year-olds have completed the right training to become surgeons. His argumentative nature and constant expression of his opinions suggested to me that he is very extroverted, and somewhat neurotic. He carried on his Alaska argument in a manner that suggested to me that he was actually trying to be disagreeable, even after I gave him countless facts about Alaska’s statehood. The fact that he kept changing his age, and later that he refused to describe himself, pointed to a lack of openness. I wondered why he refused to have any type of conversation about his appearance when it was so easy to lie. For instance, I claimed to be a 5’9 redhead with green eyes. In reality, I’m 5’4, dirty blonde (if not light brunette), and my eyes are brown. It is almost needless to say that this individual was not extremely conscientious since the majority of the things he said about himself were almost certainly false. He seemed to be in a very nervous, defensive state. Late in the Alaska conversation he made territorial challenges, such as, “What do you know? I’ve never seen you in here anyway…maybe you should go find another room.”

It is very possible that this conversation was not meant to be as hostile as I perceived it. It might have been a couple of teenagers having a good time making up an identity, or it could have been a woman in her fifties who got bored watching the Fox News Channel. However, the words that Normul Purson used combined with a tone I detected from context made it seem as though Normul Purson was trying to scare me out of his chat room, or some other negative action. I reached these conclusions due to a lack of Normul Purson’s social presence as well as a lack of non-verbal clues. As a result, I developed a negative impression of Normul Purson. This impression was in line with the CFO prediction that lack of cues in CMC leads to neutral, negative, and underdeveloped impressions.