gypsygrl
Posts: 1471
Joined: 10/8/2005 From: new york state Status: offline
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Interesting. Your op speaks to the point where on-line dating intersects with literary theory. Imagine that. :) Forgive me, but I'm gonna go ahead and let my mind wander a bit here. Some people are better in writing, myself included. I would imagine writers to be at their best in writing. I've never learned any protocols mostly because I've never met anyone interested in teaching that sort of thing but I consider writing to be one of my strengths. So, I'm better in writing than I am via any other medium including the unmediated face to face interaction. When I meet someone from the internet, I find it fascinating to see how their chosen presentation of self--the image they project in a text based medium--meshes with the person I meet. There's always a difference, and some people are better at self-consciously cultivating an image than others. But, nobody can help but project an image that only partially captures who they are face to face or, in your case, on the phone--I suck on the phone and rarely use them unless I know someone really well. The task of talking to someone I don't know who I can't see is really bothersome. Its the image of the author (borrowing from Baktin, here) that captures my attention on line. Not so much the content of the texts I interact with, but the intangible spirit of the person writing the texts. Excepting skilled manipulators who are well versed in the art of deception via simulation, the images are real enough. But, they only exist via a given media, and tend to fall away as the media changes only to be replaced by other images. Personally, I've made it a habit of meeting people pretty soon after I exchange texts with them and try not to spend too much energy passing texts back and forth. 'Cause, like, ya know, the medium is the message...
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“To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.” ~Walter Benjamin
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