For this assignment I entered a chat room as an older male named Marcus. I was in my late 30s, recently divorced but still a very successful lawyer from New York City. Upon entering the chatroom, these were the qualities that I focused on. I apparently caught the attention of a young girl named Kira, but her screename was a little more promiscuous, "Wud-b-urs22". I automatically assumed that the conversation was going to go no where good, but I wanted to see how she was going to approach me. She started off talking about he college classes and how she was already stressed out in her first year/ first week of grad school. She then on to explain how she just needed someone to talk to about her career change of going to grad school for biomedical research instead of going to medical school to become the neurologist she always dreamed of becoming. Before she even allowed me to comment on her life she jumped into wanted to know about the significance of my screename: Glad2beFree. I explained my recent divorce as a 38year old man who is about the enter mid-life crisis. She immediately was reassuring and then played upon my success, which I wondered how she assumed that I was successful so quickly but then I realized me mentioning my New York pent house opened the door to that assumption. We began to focus on my life more, how I AKA "Marcus" ended up divorced and how I started my own law firm and what I was doing this weekend. Despite going to school in Boston, she more than willingly offered to come and visit me and then insisted how we should meet up and "have a drink". I immediately backed down and emphasized that age difference but she just kept pushing. I was pretty shocked because she knew nothing about me besides the fact that Marcus was well off financially. I then signed off because I did not want the conversation to go into a more awkward phase in which I would have to reveal my real identity.
In this chatroom I definitely utilized the self presentation tactics of utilizing diction that portrayed me in a noble, sophisticated charming older male. My developed vocabulary throughout the conversation suggested my education and my status but I was really thrown off how this young girl immediately took these qualities, assumed that is was true and was sucked in by them to really like me as "Marcus".
My comments:
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3 comments:
This is really funny. Oftentimes you'll hear stories about men being suggestive towards women online, but rarely the other way around.
Your post sounds like you didn't do all that much talking (well, typing I suppose). Other than sharing information about your career and where you live, it seems as though your correspondence was mostly one-sided. It would be interesting to investigate how much of the woman's prompting dealt with previously determined motivations, and how much of it had to do with genuine interest in this 30 year old man. In other words, do you think this woman was just longing for a drink with someone or did you offer enough substance to allow this woman to really form a positive impression?
That's a really interesting story. You did a good job carefully choosing how to communicate with this person to convey your false identity. Because of the lack of visual channels, it is important to use text-based factors such as vocabulary to influence the other person's decision.
I obviously don't have any facts to back this up, but I wouldn't be surprised if the person you were talking to was also pretending to be someone else? Maybe she was truly just being a friendly person, but did you consider if she wasn't who you thought she was?
You mention that the other person immediately took your qualities to be true. That may be because she has no other data to suggest otherwise and also because if she appears skeptical to you, it will seem unfriendly or cold and the conversation will likely end soon. Sometimes when talking online you simply have to “go with the flow” if you’re looking for a good conversation.
Wow. This chick is some type of a gold digger. I really enjoyed your post – it was comical to read about this young woman only interested in meeting a middle aged man whom she knew nothing about; other than the fact that he was rich and divorced. I’m curious to know whether she is really that shallow in person. I’m surprised that she was pushing to meet “you” for drinks so badly, but partial anonymity over the internet was, I’m sure, a factor in her being so forward. I wonder if she approaches older, wealthier men face to face. It would be interesting if you had agreed to meet this girl for drinks. Where would the conversation have gone?
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