Recently I nearly gave a friend the cold shoulder because I thought I was being blown off online. F was a new-found friend and we were both getting along well. Over the Christmas break when I tried to catch my friend online, through Facebook and FB chat, I had a feeling F was avoiding me. As if, I had said something to offend her. She'd show up on the chat window and then quickly exit.
What was up with that?
I decided not to connect with F the whole time over the Christmas season. All I did was greet her through text on Christmas Day and that was that. I was quite miffed by her behavior. And here I thought we would be really good friends.
What is it about connecting on FB that seems to be an important requirement for building relationships these days? (or is that just me?) It's as if our online personas have to link up so that there's a permission of sorts that gets exchanged non-verbally. It seems to give us a pass to investigate each other quietly, stealthily. It's as if we need to "study" what went on, what is going on in a person's life prior to deepening the relationship. Will judgements come into play? Perhaps, but we can never know for sure, can we?
I mean, take for instance the way I quickly judged F for avoiding me online. After checking out her page, I wanted to chat about some of the photos, or the common connections we had. However it seemed to me that whenever I came online, she would go offline, and I'd watch as the little green dot in the chat window suddenly became a hollow, gray little round icon.
Whatever happened to common experiences, and building a relationship from that? What happened to face to face conversations and exploring common interests together? Even quarrels are a necessary element in deepening relationships. Are we afraid of confrontations now, and would we rather poke at one another indirectly via our status messages? Is it less messy that way? It it more complicated in person?
Our behavior online could be an indication of the actions we wish for ourselves offline. Online, despite the fact that we have our photos to identify our page, our names, and our "voice" in our texts, the asynchronicity still seems to provide a veil that aids in letting go and also accepting otherwise effacing actions. Maybe it's because we're so Asian that we really do set much store on saving face. Facial reactions definitely belie what is in our heads, and our responses cannot be changed or taken back once the facial muscles contract or contort in reaction. At least online, we can project an image of being cool and introspective despite snarky remarks. Wittiness is not lost on us as we can quickly pull up an emoticon or a smiley to mask our true emotions.
The next time I saw F, she seemed happy to see me, and I was befuddled. So I told her how I felt and she was just as surprised. Turns out she wasn't a chat person, and never liked instant messaging. She hardly ever chatted with her old friends, and she almost never responds to chat messages when she's on FB. So I had misinterpreted her actions. I laughed, and she laughed, and we were friends again, but it got me thinking some more of why I interpreted her actions that way. Was it just me and personal expectations of exchanging conventional gestures of friendship online? Or was she really violating some unspoken netiquette that I adhered to but didn't think she needed to?
Were we trying to save the friendship, or were we simply just saving face?
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