August-ish, 2006: Roommate assignments administered to incoming freshman at Cornell.
November, 2006: I now live in a double room by myself because my roommate has moved out.
Let me explain the events that occurred in between. Oh, the drama!
My freshman-year roommate and I contacted each other on Facebook as soon as we got the memo that we’d be roomed together for our first year at college. We talked about the finer things in life, and asked the oh-so original questions “Where you from?” and “What do you do for fun?” (Boooring, wake me when it’s over.) Somehow through these lackluster conversations, we hit it off. So of course, via the Hyperpersonal model (thank you, Walther), I thought she was the coolest thing since the eraser. I shall elaborate.
Every time we talked and she said something related to softball or another sport that I like, she got more and more splendid to talk to. She said that she played softball and other sports, so I over-attributed her as an athlete (which is super-duper in my book). But, I think she may be guilty of selective self-presentation. Clearly, she was not going to straight-up tell me “I am a psycho”, but she could have AT LEAST warned me just a little bit.
So the day came when we moved it, and we met non-virtually for the first time. Semi-awkward, but I brushed it off. But as the days went by, things got worse and worse. Disappearances (of both her and my personal belongings), awkwardness, and fights were all routine. Soon it was unbearable, where was the awesome person I met online? Non-existent. Thanks again, Walther.
Things were very bad, but I refused to move out of my room. Luckily, to my delight, I came home one day and her things were gone from the room. She had moved out without even telling me. And we still don't talk to this day.
The moral of the story is: everyone seems awesomely cool online. Little do we know, they’re the biggest disappointment since K-Fed’s album Playing With Fire. Ouch.
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6 comments:
Hey Ashley that was an entertaining post. And sorry about your roommate problems, but at least she moved out! Luckily I had pretty good roommates so I can't much relate to your situation. I can only imagine how much that must have sucked to think you were going to have a fun, cool new best friend and then in turns out she is the opposite. I guess even psycho's can come off sane online with all the reduced cues and selective self-representation abilities. Scary
Ashley, I really enjoyed reading your post; even though it was kind of a horror story, it was very entertaining. I was never in a situation as bad as yours, but I did talk with some people living in my dorm on Facebook before coming to Cornell. It was definitely a little awkward in the beginning, but luckily, we all managed to overcome the awkwardness.
I agree with you in that the hyperpersonal model was present in the situation with your roommate. She clearly focused only on the traits that she thought would impress you, and she failed to mention the fact that she was “psycho.” It sounds like you and your roommate interacted for a while on CMC, and you had high expectations for your roommate, which might also tie in with Ramirez and Wang’s study. Because your expectations were so high, you were bound to be disappointed by your roommate. I guess it all worked out in the end though—a double to yourself is not a bad deal at all. :)
Ashley, I'm sorry about what happened between you and your roommate, but it was an interesting post to read. As you mentioned in your post, I agree with you that your case is the typical example of a dark side of over-attribution feature of online relationship. As time goes by, the extremeness of a biased image only gets worse like your case turned out. If the relationship did not start online and if you had met her in FtF first, maybe, it would have less hell to live with her.
This seems to be quite a common problem. I didn’t personally have to deal with roommate issues because I had a single freshman year, but one of best friends was essentially engaged in a war with her roommate for the second half of first semester. She and her roommate had exchanged messages before coming to school and the other girl had seemed pleasant enough. Little did my friend know that this girl had questionable hygiene and liked to go to bed at 9pm. In addition, she never bought any food for their room but had no problem eating all of my friend’s food.
In your case, I think SIDE theory also applies. You thought that you shared several group memberships with your roommate and upon meeting her, she became differentiated and individuated and you discovered that she wasn’t as similar to you as you had thought.
I love this post. It was so easy to read and quite entertaining. The hyperpersonal model definitely came into play, as you explained. Before meeting her in person, you thought your room mate was incredibly cool, and that you would get along really well.
I was also thinking about the uncertainty reduction theory in relation to your situation. As you got to know your future room mate via facebook, you felt closer to her and your uncertainty was reduced. Then, when you met in person, your uncertainty was raised, however, instead of lowering overtime, your uncertainty increased...an interesting twist.
I am sorry that you got through such a bad time with your roommate. As i also said in my blog, my friend also gets along very bad with her roommate, but I think you are in an even worse situation. I think both hyperpersonal theory and the Ramirez and Wang's study work well for your problem. High expection always take on disappointment and desperation. You contacted your roommate through CMC, you found what amused you, and lost the flaws of your roommate.
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