My experience in a chat room under the subject matter of dreams has definitely been the most interesting weird and funny encounter I had all week. There was a couple of people in the room, but only one really spoke directly to me, sharuk. I learned that he was from India, about 20 years old, and was studying BCA, which after numerous attempts of asking what that meant, he explained that it was a bachelor in Computer Applications. He seems kind of annoyed that I did not know what BCA meant but he quickly jumped into the ASL ( age/ sex/ location) inquery to get information about myself. Before giving him an anonymous name, Maria, I made sure to get his name, which was Anul. His english was not very good because he tried to explain how "pipil" called him Armstrong, and then corrected himself to say that "pupil" called him Armstrong. I made sure to not get into details about my life. I tried to get back on the topic of dreams, but he abruptly stated that he dreamt about the future and then asked if i was an astrologist. I was a little weired out but i wanted to see where he was going with this. He failed to continue on the topic but delved into finding out my studies. I was not able to clarify if he was actually in India now or he is just from there because he keep avoiding my questions and went on to say weird things like
sharuk (guest): hey can i say ur name lov
sharuk (guest): am saying that to protect
at which I decided to leave it at that and sign out. I don't know what he meant by that but I was hoping that it was his English barrier that made him sound creepy. He generally seemed like a nice guy being that he was wiling to talk and he did not ask me any real perverted questions. My encounter followed along the both the CFO model because under the short time I was talking to him I did not get enough information to really develop an impression about him. In addition , with the barrier of CMC, he did not open up enough to me. Nevertheless, along the Hypersonal model, whatever information I did learn about him, I did hold on to it and try to figure him out.
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3 comments:
This blog really reminded me of my experience entering into a chat room for the first time. My correspondent was also with a man, pattex who is 18 years old and from Jamaica. When I read the snippet from your conversation and sharuk called you lov I immediately was reminded of the uncomfortable feeling that I got when pattex said that to me. Judging from your next action of signing off I'm assuming you shared that level of discomfort.
Something that I have found consistent in just a few encounters and reading your blog is that talking online gives strangers a sense of security and daringness. This goes along with the countless posts about women talking to men in chat rooms. Questions that would be inappropriate to ask someone say if you met them in a bar are permissible online. This leads me to question, is there a different social code of conduct online? And if so what are the different standards and how are those lines laid.
Great post, you really got me thinking!
It's interesting that in some ways, the language barrier may have led you to have an experience more in line with the CFO model. Since it was hard to correctly interpret some of what he said, the natural result was for you to be unable to form a cohesive impression of him. Like you said, his broken English made it hard to tell if he was actually a strange guy or if he was just having trouble sending the right messages. So in this case, it wasn't just the lack of non-verbal cues that led you to form the opinion (or lack thereof) that you did; it was the lack of coherence in the verbal cues themselves. In FtF, non-verbal cues would have almost certainly allowed you to form a deeper impression of him.
When I saw the title of your post I thought it would be interesting to read about chatting about dreams. But it seems like the people in this chat room were not in fact talking about dreams. I wonder if people most people do discuss their dreams in such a chat room, or if they, like myself, see the title "dream chat" and just get interested to go in. If so, this says something about the people's personalities in itself. Perhaps that they are extroverted and open in willing to disclose the contents of their dreams? Or maybe they just get intruiged by the title of the chat room?
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