CMC Relationships

This whole world wide tanglement of a web took interpersonal relationships to a whole new level. I remember when I started to become of 'dating' age, when the whole AOL chat and 'You've Got Mail' was taking society by storm. I'll admit, I've been involved in that scene of developing an anonymous "pen pal" or chat buddy and looked forward to chatting with them all the time. I vaguely remember how I used to even get in touch with people whether it was via chat room, or random profile searches where you looked for something you had in common. Walther draws this from SIDE Theory, an acronym for Social identity-deindividuation. Basically meaning, when most CMC relationships begin when parties meet in online groups/chat rooms based on a common interest, and assume that others are like them (p. 145). I do feel that these common interests are overexaggerated, because since you don't have other cues to go off of, you can only grasp on to what you know, or what you're told based on how the other person presents themselves. It's a scary thing... but like Joe [from You've Got Mail] said "this not knowing has its charm" (p. 141) which is probably why some people enjoy the adrenaline rush of the unknown...... until they've had their share of disappointments.... ;-)