My brother-in-law said many hurtful things to me in a conversation we had about 2 years after I married his brother. I was so hurt and so angry that I didn't want to talk to him face-to-face or even over the phone. I decided to write him an email explaining why the things he said had hurt me. I didn't want a response from him in return. I just wanted to make sure that he knew what he'd done.
About a week later I received an email from him explaining in further detail why he'd said everything he'd said. I took it as though he was saying, "I'm sorry, but not really because I believe I am right." Anyway, the whole mess just got messier as we attempted to deal with it over the internet. Misunderstanding after misunderstanding only drove us to have more and more issues with each other.
Eventually I decided that internet communication was never going to allow us to mend our relationship. Without having a firm foundation for our relationship, our offenses determined the way we interpreted every word in the absence of nonverbal cues. Now we only communicate face-to-face. It allows us to see each other beyond our past offenses. We can read each other better because we are able to see past the words that are spoken. Nonverbal cues and tone of voice allow us to see the heart behind what is spoken. Our relationship is gradually getting stronger with each face-to-face conversation we have.
My internet interactions with my brother-in-law represent the influences that our individualistic culture has on us. Both of us were more concerned about our own interests that we were about each other. Since we were prideful, and both of us knew it, we didn't want to communicate face-to-face for fear that we might have shown that we felt we should have been sorry. We knew that meeting in a physical place would mean that nonverbal cues and all of the rules for what may be said would come into play, making us more vulnerable, so we took advantage of the space provided by the internet that allowed us to resist discourse. We said things that weren't 100% true because space, in the absence of a physical place, allowed us to hide our true thoughts and feelings.
Our individualistic culture is grounds for a lot of dishonest communication now that the internet has provided us with space that allows for discursive resistance. We manipulate others, disregarding all of the rules for what may be said, as we communicate online. Many of us say exactly the opposite of what we feel, only wanting to make sure that others perceive us in certain ways. I think it is very sad that we have thrown discourse to the wind in so many ways, just because we can. I would hope that things will turn around in the future, but I think that the more technology provides us with space lacking place, the more discursive resistance will occur.
3 comments:
There is certainly an element of accountability and necessary honesty in face to face communication that doesn't necessarily exist in CMC. We can let our thoughts, and therefore our words, loose without restriction in our "space." We react to perceived meanings without knowing for sure the intended ones, and we respond without the concerns we would usually have in a face to face conversation, therefore exacerbating the situation. As I said in response to Courtney's blog post, internet communication's design is perfect for the transfer of information but sucks for transferring deeper meaning, emotion, humor, etc.
Good to hear your relationship is getting stronger with him. Internet conversation can make things sound bad when they are said. But the face to face conversation I am sure would help more. Internet conversations do not always get the emotion of the message across correctly. Maybe you may have taken it wrong the first time and he was apologising. I of course cannot really say because I do not fully know the circumstances of the siutation but I am just saying miscommunications can happen. And perhaps if you had had the face to face conversation in the first place the entire time the internet conversations were happnening the misunderstanding would not have happened and you all could have gotten along better faster. I think here would have been less commotion.
Oh and I just want to say keep it upo with the face to face contact I hope it works for you.
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