Chat Rooms: Too Sketch for Comfort? Assignment #2

Hey guys! I'm doing this while I'm chatting... I just googled "free chat rooms" and after much searching (most of them were wayy inappropriate!) found one where the people seem relatively normal, and I'm talking to a particular user in separate a separate screen. The larger server for the chatroom is parachat.com. I guess the whole chat room thing is just a bit overwhelming for me since I've never done it before and so many people post at a time that it's really difficult to keep people straight, much less try to analyze one particular user.

Right now the user I'm chatting with is "tatersalad87" So far, neither of them has been inappropriate, despite the sketchy sounding names. I asked tatersalad about if his name was supposed to be dirty and he said no (haha... I wouldn't have known any better), it's from some comedy routine. I took his word for it. On a side note, this is getting pretty annoying because new windows keep popping up with private messages. I should have made my username gender-less. I suppose that's another psychological phenomenon-- why people are so forward and unabashed when it comes to hitting on the other sex online.

So tatersalad, who I've just now learned actually has a name (!), Eric, seems to be a nice, quiet guy. If I were to judge him on extroverted-ness, I would definitely put him on the introvert side. However, once I revealed to him that I was new to the site, he was very helpful and said he chatted there "all the time". When I asked why he liked the site, he said it was easy to find people to talk to. This, to me, said a lot about his personality. I think that often times people who find it hard to generate genuine conversation in face-to-face settings find it much easier to have legitimate conversations in a CMC situation. In a CMC setting, everyone on the site is using the site for the same general purpose-- to chat. In face-to-face, people are more likely to show their disinterest, or simply to reject the conversation from the start. In addition to seeming introverted, Eric told me that he is currently a bioengineering major at a community college.

So Eric just signed off and I did as well. As I was saying though, the fact that he is a bioengineering major made me jump to the conclusion that he was not only introverted, but intellectual and maybe a little nerdy. Sorry to all you engineers out there, but that's the truth. Incidentally, he told me later in the conversation that he was a nerd, but said he liked to go camping, canoeing, hiking, etc. I of course told him that I could be a nerd as well, and he seemed surprised. He also told me he "never gets the girls" because he is a nice guy, and girls don't go for nice guys. I honestly believed him, although when you think about it, I had no reason to.

I guess I would say that my online experience with my new friend (haha) was more on the side of Hyperpersonal. I definitely saw the selective delegation of personal information, as the few things he told me about himself seemed to me to be the strongest impressions I recieved. When he wasn't quick to respond and ask me a hundred questions, I immediately assumed he was shy, reserved, and most of all, not a pervert. All of these implications could be entirely off base, but because I had a limited amount of time talking to him (about 20 minutes), I had to base my entire perception off of the few things he told me about himself. Maybe it's just because I'm a visual learner, but I also found myself unconsciously trying to picture him in my head as I was typing to him. He said he had shoulder-length blonde hair, and I pictured a surfer type, especially since he said he was from Florida. When he said he didn't like the beach, I had a more difficult time typecasting him. I think this is due in large part to the categories I have predetermined in my brain, which I know is a bad thing because you're not supposed to just shove people into categories, but I know we all do it whether we do it consciously or not. I think that in some way, the energy, or resources, that I would have used to visually and physically assess this guy were definitely used in trying to figure him out through his words; how he expressed himself, how long it took him to respond, the types of questions he asked me. Normally, I would not have thought so hard about these kinds of things, but I was using my limited resources on a small breadth of cues.

When it comes to my own personal relationships, I think I'll stay away from sketchy chat room men.