as I was driving to work today, I realized that though I meet new people quite frequently rarely do I form lasting relationships with them. I don't think I would necessarily characterize myself as outgoing, though that word has been attributed to me several times. I think there is a difference between outgoing and having no fear talking to strangers. Those who know me well know that this lack of fear has gotten me into trouble several times.
Now when I meet people, I still have no fear of talking to them or even following up with them. However, I have noticed a trend in the people I get to know. They generally are people who are obsessive compulsive about e-mail, IM until all hours of the morning, or if they don't fall into either of those categories, they are generally people who will spend a lot of effort getting to know someone, i.e. organizing events etc.
A lot of my close friends I've gotten to know through IM conversations until 3am etc. For some reason I think IM provides an easy medium. It's not particularly threatening and as long as you can type fast enough you can almost carry on a regular conversation. I find most of the people whom i communicate with via IM are generally quiet in person, but once you get to know them will open up. I think this is my preferred medium for getting to know people these days. One of the major downfalls is the lack of emotion conveyed, but eh every medium has it's faults right?
Posted by joann at February 6, 2004 11:23 AMThe main advantage of IM is that silences are far more comfortable than either speaking in real life or on the phone. Since people aren't worried about filling silences, they can spend thier brain power thinking of meaningful things to say instead of figuring out what to talk about next when the current thread dies...
That's interesting that you're still getting to know new people through IM. I was just thinking the other day, that while I met a lot of people through IM during college, since graduation I've mostly been IM'ing old friends. I thought it was some sort of post-college trend, but maybe it's just me :-)