Assignment 5, Option 1

For a computer nerd like me there could be no better fairytale meeting than what actually happened in the summer of 2005. I was attending the National Youth League Forum on Technology in Silicon Valley, California when I met the guy with whom I’d have a meaningful relationship. There I was sitting down at a computer playing Counter-Strike when low and behold a cute blond, blue-eyed boy takes the computer next to me. There was instant attraction, shared common interests, friendliness and needless to say we hit it off. (In order to maintain privacy I will call this boy Blue for the remainder of this personal example.)

For all its perfection the end of the trip brought forth a sad realization, he was from Delaware and I from Virginia. Our face-to-face relationship quickly turned into a mediated one. With the exception of the occasional visits on holidays we relied on media like telephones, email, instant messaging, and text messaging to interact. Somehow even though we were mostly apart our relationship grew stronger and lasted close to a year and a half.

The strength and length of our relationship can be explained through three of Wallace’s attraction factors. While Wallace describes four different attraction factors physical attractiveness does not apply to my example. Wallace states that usually in computer mediated communication people get to know one another and then judge them based on their looks, which is the opposite case of when people meet each other face-to-face. Since I met Blue face-to-face the physical attractiveness factor is not relevant to this scenario.

Another of Wallace’s attraction factors is the idea of proximity. Proximity is described by the idea that familiarity breeds attraction (Zajonc, 1980) and that in mediated communications familiarity is determined by intersection frequency. For example, the more two people interact online the more familiar they become and the more attractive they seem to one another. This was true to my relationship with Blue. Although we met face-to-face the California trip only lasted two weeks and we could only learn so much about each other during that time. It was through our mediated communications that came after, our never-ending text messages and favorite late night phone conversations that we came to learn more about one another and grow closer.

Common ground is another attraction factor. It illustrates the idea that you are attracted to people with whom you share common interests, attitudes, beliefs, etc. (“Birds of a feather flock together”) Blue and I were once called “matching bookends” and it’s true. The more we communicated the more we realized how much we had in common: gaming, movies, sports, music, even religious beliefs. There was hardly anything we didn’t agree on and this large proportion of similar interests led to greater attraction as explained by the law of attraction described by Wallace in The Psychology of the Internet.

Lastly, disinhitibion is Wallace’s fourth attraction factor. Wallace states that in computer mediated communication “you may reveal more about yourself to them, feel more attraction to them, and express more emotions” because “you can concentrate only on yourself, your words, and the feelings you want to convey” (151, The Psychology of the Internet). Simply, there is increased self-disclosure in mediated, especially online, communications. I believe that disinhitibion played a crucial role in my relationship with Blue. Being able to communicate with Blue through media like text and instant messaging allowed me to talk to him and reveal things about myself with greater ease. Because in face-to-face and even voice conversations I often become shy and refuse to say something if it might even cause me the littlest embarrassment. Since our mediated communications allowed me convey my thoughts and feelings without worrying about anyone else or how I appear our relationship was able to continually develop.

While Blue and I are no longer in a romantic relationship we still keep in touch and so far there hasn't been anyone who's known me as well or been as similar. I feel that the intensity of our relationship can be partially credited to the long periods of computer mediated communication that let us be ourselves.


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