11.Where should I go in Thanksgiving?

I have a friend Alex coming to Cornell together with me. After assigned a double room, she contacted her roommate immediately through email. This contact lasted for nearly 4 months.

Before we came, I thought she knew everything and every life detail of her new roommate, because when we chatted, she even knew what color of flip-flops the new roommate liked. This really surprised me very much. Not only because I didn't send any email to my new roommate, but also because I would never believe two girl strangers can get on so well just through this email thing. But comparing to what happened to her on the day her roommate moving in, this was a piece of cake.

I was in her room when her new roommate moved in. After a hard work, we went to dinner together, when her new roommate Joe invited her to home during Thanksgiving break. This was really surprising and she said yes.

But things didn't go through well as it seemed as days passed. One day, I was going to a dinner with Alex, when we met Joe on the way. But they two both pretended not to see each other and passed each other with silence. I was surprised again.

Then Thanksgiving came. I was planing what to do with my friends, when Alex suddenly called asking me if she could join us. This was surprising but also in expectation. After we talked, I knew, they didn't get on well. They quarrelled on whether to open windows in the night, on how often should they clean the room, on when to turn off the light in the evening and on playing music too loud on the computer. It seemed they quarrelled about every little things, and they turned out not talk to each other. And now Alex even contacted the Cornell housing, wanting to move out or change a room.

I think it is a disaster when things turn out like this.

Alex's experience is in consistent to the Ramirez and Wang Hypothesis. Modality switch following a long-term association via CMC will provide social information that will be evaluated negatively and uncertainty-provoking relative to interaction via CMC. Alex and her new roommate Joe communicated online for nearly 4 months, which was a long time. They got on really well online, and it seemed they had many commons. But when they finally lived together, they found more differences of life habits, and turned out a bad relation and evaluation.

Alex's experience is also in consistent to the Hyperpersonal Theory. CMC leads to inflated of over-attribution. So some attributes are evaluated more than they really are. So when the two persons meet in real life, these attributes are not that prominent, comparing to others. And they become disappointed after they move to off-line. This works with Alex's experience.

Now I really hope they two can work well, or they can find their own "dream room". I don't want to hear "I hate staying in my room" in the next spring break.