Tuesday, September 25, 2007
A,5 O,1 - Bad Girlfriend
When my freshmen year of college started, I was not far from home. I am a local to Ithaca, NY and therefore was still very close to my girlfriend I had had since mid high school. However I did move out of my dads house and was at a college dorm room with lots of other people. I kept in touch with my girlfriend and still tried to do as much with her as possible. However with the hectic college lifestyle it was rather difficult at times. After a very short time our relationship turned sour, I felt as if I did not matter at all to her anymore and of course I felt as if I wasn’t even her boyfriend anymore. It got to the point where she was not even responding to my phone calls and text messages and was getting many from other guy “friends”. Of course as you can guess my relationship last no longer, she was cheating on me with other guys from high school and I was to stupid to realize that. I spent a lot of time in depression and almost ended up not coming back to college. According to Wallace’s attraction factors, my girlfriends dissolved attraction for me could have been a result of the lack of common ground between us two. I was in college now and living the college life, while she was still in high school, doing the same thing she had done the previous 12 years of her life. She was also still talking to me about how she hated her unsupportive mom and how her cheerleading coach hated her and it was the same thing all the time, while I was always happy and making new friends and enjoying my time at college and that is what I enjoyed talking about. Although I always supported her as much as I could I just could not always talk about the subjects she wanted to talk about. Another factor, lack of proximity to me could have been a factor. Even though I spent so much time trying to spend time with her and make things work it still was just not enough for her. More then likely the physical closeness that was lost in our relationship led to her distancing herself by not contacting me when I contacted her. With these two factors in mind I believe that her dissolved attraction for me happened as a result of these two attraction factors. We just had to little in common for her now that I was in college and not with her every single day. I apparently was not close to her as often to her to satisfy her needs and I just went on to live a much different life style.
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4 comments:
Hello William, I am sorry about what happened between you and your ex-girl friend. I have seen many of my friends going through a painful experience like yours. Indeed, having relationship online is not something easy to do. I think this is why people usually find articles about online relationship very interesting and unusual. Moreover, your relationship initially started as FtF and moved to online. It seems like transition from FtF to CMC is harder to manage than the other way around. I agree with you on your analysis on Common Ground and Proximity. It’s natural that having less in common and less frequent interaction are obstacles in keeping relationship. I also think the transition from FtF to CMC was one of the factors that played major role in this relationship.
William, sorry to hear about that man. Seems like the two factors you mentioned did have the greatest effect on the relationship. Common ground is a really big factor and I definitely see where you were coming from not being able to talk about depressing issues all the time while you were in college and enjoying life. It is always hard to have a relationship with someone else when you are not able to see them everyday. Clearly you made an effort to see her as much as possible and she didn't. Don't worry bud. I think you are much better off and there are plenty more fish in the sea! Play that field son!
William, I have to say that your story is a sad one. I'm sorry that you got so hurt in your relationship. It is very interesting to me that even though your girlfriend lived so close to you - ITHACA (!!!) - she managed to become so disenchanted with the relationship. It is sad that your busy lives and conflicting schedules put such a strain on things. It just proves that sometimes lack of Ftf interactions is not enough of a reason to end a relationship. Even with CMC and FtF to rely on, if the common ground and sense of commitment aren't present, things can go sour. I was involved in a long-distance relationship for 2.5 years, and once I got to Cornell, my (ex) boyfriend and I were physically closer to each other than we had been for most of our relationship. Even so, our relationship took a turn for the worst when I went to college. Sometimes everything just isn't enough.
William, you did a great job with tying your post with Wallace’s attraction factors. I can really identify with the situation with your ex-girlfriend. I wrote something similar to your post in my blog, except I think I played the part of the “bad girlfriend.” I had a great time during my freshman year, like you did, but the boy I was involved with was having difficulties with adjusting to college life. It seemed like all he did was complain when I just wanted to talk about how great things were going for me at Cornell. Your post definitely rings true for what eventually happened between me and my friend. I also agree that lack of proximity and common ground are hard obstacles to overcome in a CMC environment.
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