I have been enjoying making hundreds of friends from all over the world in one social network since January. Initially, my purpose was to promote my first book, KOILAWAN: Letters and Poems of a Jungle Dad-Mom, and my other book projects. However, I was so intrigued with the messages like, "I m very sure I have met u n Manila?","I n-vite u 2 a party!"(...as if US and Europe are just an hour drive away.),"U r my best friend.", that I lost focus. Tending my garden of friends and learning how they live (culture) and how they communicate have now become my interest. As I continue to exchange messages and postings on funwalls,(making sure that I could send "smiley", "Starbuck's coffee" or "growing plants" every weekend),I began to wonder what really is my relationship with many of them. Are we friends or just acquaintances with friendly relations?
Developing an interpersonal relationship with strangers (particularly on the web)is not easy if one is really serious in making friends. Mere messages and application "gifts" are easy to misinterpret. The term 'acquaintance' is seemingly not a website lingo.
According to S. Kurth's Social Relationship (1970), there are two types of relationships: friendly relations and friendship. Friendly relations (acquaintances) involve a present orientation that focuses on the encounter that is taking place. Friendship focuses on the interaction regarding the past and future, as well as the present. Following Kurth's idea, I could easily categorized those who just keep on sending an overused "how r u" messages, without progression to issues that touch ones past,future or more intellectually engaging topics, are just mere acquaintances, not my friends yet. However, if I would consider the language barrier (many only speaks either Spanish or Indo-European language) I really could not just simply put them in that box, despite the mere "how r u" drop line I received twice a week. We seem to reinforce our language limitation to heartwarming application gifts...gifts that imply real friendship between us. I blabber English sentences at them, hoping that they understand, considering that English is spoken worldwide. I ignore the thought that even English speakers can experience communication miscues, such as "rubber" is an eraser to the British, while a condom to the American-English speakers. Worst, it could be either a tree or a pair of running shoes to ESL (English-as-a-second-language) speakers.
So, for now I have to assume that my interpersonal relations with many of my online friends have been progressing. I have a friend relation with you when I received a requests to become your friend and a message of confirmation is received. I have a friendship relationship with you when you start sending me "how r u" messages and posts, meaningful or ridiculous. It progresses when more posts are received, even just once a week. Friendship ends when the short messages and posts, or acknowledgement of posts, do not come anymore for several weeks. When that happens, I put our relationship back to friend relations. Believe me, I really am hoping that all my online friends are not just my acquaintances.
Drop me a line how you would consider yours.
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