Wayne Fuller was a 56 year old business man, five years divorced, with two full-grown children and four grandkids, when he happened to barely miss the love of his life. He had been scanning the pages of Yahoo's Personals service and was just about to give up, when he decided to take a look at just one more personal. His click brought him to the page of Sharon Watts, also a 56 years old, and also divorced (for two years). She had just started her Yahoo personal that week, when she received her first message from Wayne.
Sharon says she liked Wayne from his very first response: it wasn't too pushy or forward, and was very mature and kind. Soon after, they moved their interactions to phone conversations, and before long, they were meeting for the first time Face to Face. Everything took off from there and the two of them were married not long after.
In the instances of online relationships originating from online personal sites, Walther's 1996 study may be the most applicable in analyzing the level of deception present on any one person's profile (provided that he or she is seriously interested in meeting/dating possible contacts). This study showed that anticipated future interaction was a strong motivator for self-presentation manipulation, and in the case of Sharon and Wayne, was a factor in keeping things honest and accurate on their Personals pages. In anticipation of eventually meeting someone FtF, most users will attempt to appear congruent with their online presentation and so they will refrain from hyperbole and lies (unless they feel that they can get away with it). This may be especially true in the case of Wayne and Sharon, as at their age, they most likely didn't want to waste any time creating a false image to facilitate what would most likely be a false and unhealthy relationship.
Wayne and Sharon's relationship was further facilitated by their living in the same city and in the great degree of common ground that they shared. Their first phone conversation lasted over two hours -- they had a lot to talk about and found that they were much alike, both in their interests, but also in their shared experiences of being over 55 in Dallas, of being divorced, and of being... well... lonely. This shared common ground and their willingness to self-disclose to one another (disinhibition) are examples of Wallace's attraction factors.
While I'm unsure if they had pictures on their Personals profiles, Wayne and Sharon's willingness to self-disclose to one another in CMC environments and in phone conversations is indicative of the Stranger in the Crowd effect that McKenna describes. Knowing that they are both singles, looking for a relationship amongst a large crowd of other Yahoo Personals users was a supportive structure that gave their interactions the necessary degree of privacy and anonymity. As mentioned before, their ability to find common ground with one another was pivotal to the development of their relationship, and it can also be categorized as McKenna's relationship facilitation factor of connecting to similar others. Moreover, their ability to "Get the goods" (McKenna) by browsing each other's Personals profile, allowed them to gauge their level of interest and commonality before meeting, which certainly helped grease the conversational tracks.
Comments:
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-losing-connection.html
http://comm245brown.blogspot.com/2007/09/assignment-5-option-1.html
2 comments:
Nice analysis Rj.
One part that I found interesting was your opinion on their age affecting the interaction. Since they were both older and divorced, it's very safe to assume they weren't looking to use much deception. Also, they probably weren't willing to date around with 100 different people like people in their 20's might.
Another factor you might consider is the generation gap. Older users of dating sites might not realize how defining a profile ccn be, or the prevelance of many subtle lies like our generation automatically assumes.
Rj, nice work in finding such a unique example where Sharon literally married the first person to contact her. While you raise excellent points on their proximity, common ground, and lack of deception, I believe age and experience may also be at play in this situation. They were both divorced and old, a rarity on the online dating scene, compared to the majority of youngsters online. Their youth and attractiveness was running out, and may explain why a relationship formed so quickly: they were both just there. I’m sure neither of them were too picky, and were mainly concerned about verbal cues and common interests... retiring with someone you can have a good conversation with!
Post a Comment