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From: diana@enmasse.UUCP (Diana Carroll)
Newsgroups: net.social
Subject: Re: Electronically Mediated Human Relationships
Message-ID: <347@enmasse.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Aug-86 10:44:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: enmasse.347
Posted: Tue Aug 12 10:44:43 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Aug-86 23:21:27 EDT
References: <124@uwmacc.UUCP> <1009@tekig5.UUCP> <3349@jhunix.UUCP>
Reply-To: diana@enmasse.UUCP (Diana Carroll)
Distribution: na
Organization: EnMasse Computer Corp, Acton, MA
Lines: 54

In article <3349@jhunix.UUCP> ins_alal@jhunix.zuucp (cloudbuster) writes:
>
>And as an example of this:  I struck up an electronic friendship with
>someone around a year and 1/2 ago.  After we had been corresponding for
>around 6 months, I decided that the next time I saw him in the terminal
>room that I was going to go over and talk to him.  I sat down, introduced
>myself, and was promptly (more or less) ignored.  He mumbled a few things,
>I tried to talk to him, ended up making small talk (ugh!), and he never
>once looked at me, just kept staring at his terminal.  After about 5
>minutes of this, he made some excuse to leave.  Next day, I received
>another letter, just as usual, as if nothing had ever happened.  I still
>haven't figured out why people are much shier in person than over a
>computer.  Perhaps it has something to do with faceless anonymity...
>
>-- 
>
>Laurah Limbrick @ Johns Hopkins University
>

I can relate to your email friend there.  When I was in high school I
discovered bulletin boards (!) and made a lot of email friends.  It was
a long time before I could bring myself to meet them face to face.  I
was just out of Junior High, very self-concious, and certain I was ugly,
stupid, and always putting my foot in my mouth.  (Probably all true, but
now I can deny it sucessfully.  :-)  However, I have always been told I
am a good writer, so I made a very different impression in E-relationships
(to coin a phrase) than in face-to-face . . . at least, I thought I did,
so I did >not< want the people I met on the boards to know who I really
was.

As I became more comfortable with myself, I started to like meeting
people that I had previously only written to.  In fact, for three
years, my enitre social life, including 5 successive SO's, and my best
friend, were from the boards.  That, I think, is the "too wrapped up"
mentioned earlier.

It wasn't till I got to college that I was able to meet people in a
"normal" way.  I had such a low opinion  of myself that I felt sure
I needed the buffer of EC.  I figured that if I wrote to them for a
while before I met them, then they would see that deep down I was really
a good person, despite my lack of social graces and physical appearance.

So, too answer your question, maybe this friend was still using EC
as a buffer, as wasn't ready for the contact.  I can understand it.


----------------
Diana Carroll         diana@enmasse.UUCP
decwrl!decvax!genrad!panda!enmasse!diana

        "And you want her
         And she wants you,
         But no one, no one ever is to blame"  -HoJo
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