I started dating my ex-girlfriend, Liz, in my senior year of high school and we continued dating until halfway through my junior year. I went to Cornell and she stayed in Boston, attending Northeastern University which puts about 6 hours between us, except by bus it is really 10 hours. We utilized CMC greatly to stay in touch while we were away at different schools. Our relationship was a great example of two of McKenna's relationship facilitation factors.
Identifiability - McKenna's theory of identifiability is that when two people are communicating online or in another space where they are much more anonymous, there is a lot more self-disclosure. This increased level of self-disclosure promotes relationship development and thus a relationship is more likely to evolve. In my relationship, even though I knew Liz because she went to the same school as me, we didn't have a lot of time to talk in person due do busy schedules, so we were forced to talk online while doing homework. Both of us are generally shy people, but the anonymity provided by the computers helped us develop our relationship because we felt more comfortable disclosing information to each other. We became very good friends thanks to our conversations online and the fact that we were able to talk openly to each other. While we were away at separate schools, we were able to continue talking openly through online communication.
Connecting to Similar Others - Another part of McKenna's theory is that it is easy to detect and connect with other people who share similar interests. Before I started dating Liz, while we were still getting to know each other, I was able to tell that we had a lot in common. Because we were talking online and we didn't know each other very well, we mostly talked about what we were interested in, such as classes, sports, and other activities, which helped me identify with Liz.
My relationship with Liz is a great example of how it is possible to develop a strong connection with someone online. We initially developed our connections through the computer and further developed our relationship in person.
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2 comments:
Matt,
I really enjoyed reading your post, and particularly enjoyed how you structured your post with the two McKenna fators.
Identifiability definitely does apply to your situation since you both felt more comfortable disclosing information about yourselves online. Your relationship grew because of it and continued to grow while you were both at separate schools.
You also explained well how 'connecting to similar others' applies here since you both discovered and focused on the interests and topics that appealed to you both.
Matt, I'm glad that you and your girlfriend were able to effectively maintain a long distance relationship for an extended period of time. It's interesting that you describe connecting to similar others as an important relationship factor with your girlfriend. I'd thought that this factor related more to finding new relationships online. This makes sense in online relationships because there are so many people online that it should be easier to find those with similar interests. Since you and Liz had an established relationship before communicating online I thought it was notable that this factor was still important to your relationship.
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