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May 9, 2006
The Intimacy of Anonymity
I wrote this in 1993. This sounds familiar... "..as
if after years of feeling invisible I'd discovered my bones for
the first time."
The Intimacy of Anonymity
"I can barely touch my own self.
How could I touch someone else? I'm just an advertisement for a
version of myself" - David Byrne "Angels"
I left my marriage of 15 years for a man I
met over a computer. I'd never seen him, but by the time I moved
out of my house to be with him, he'd proposed to me, we'd decided
how to baptize our children, where we'd live and where I'd go
to college. He lived halfway across the country with a wife and
two kids, but these were mere obstacles in the path of our love.
Two days later I drove to meet the man with whom I'd spend the
rest of my life. The meeting was romantic and exhilarating, but
I hated watching him cry over the wallet-sized pictures of his
two tiny daughters, and a year later, I'm sorting through the
pieces of my life, trying to understand the lure of letters on
a screen.
"I would characterize someone who is attracted
to the medium," says Rebecca Rice, a psychotherapist in
York, Pennsylvania," as someone fearful of intimacy; someone
who's been deeply hurt in intimate relationships. It's easier
to reveal those things to someone you don't know, because you're
not going to be hurt."
I was always reserved and I married a man I
couldn't communicate with. The computer gave me a voice, but
I never knew it would change my life. My first online contact
was someone who answered some of my technical questions. At first
our letters were businesslike but soon we wrote every day, and
somehow I knew I liked this man, even though I'd never looked
into his eyes. I found myself writing to him about my joys, fears
and lost illusions and he listened without judgment. Sometimes
my words surprised me, as if after years of feeling invisible
I'd discovered my bones for the first time. With a stranger.
It's not uncommon for people to meet and even
marry after meeting online.
David Carey, 25, a journalist from New York,
met his fiancé on a computer bulletin board. They began
exchanging email and eventually fell in love. Carey sees online
communication as a medium for self-discovery.
"The funny, and perhaps dangerous, aspect
of the computer," Carey says, "is that you feel free
to become you. This can be both liberating and dangerous, because
being the "you" that you desire can be addicting and
create confusion as to who you are."
Revealing myself anonymously on a deep level
is easy, but that seems counter-intuitive. It would seem that
trust and intimacy would be prerequisites for open communication
on a deep level.
"I think for communication to be meaningful," says
Rice, "trust and intimacy are prerequisites. And that's
a paradox. Why are people able to share their deepest thoughts
and feelings without trust and intimacy over the computer? I
wonder if that says something about our culture. I wonder if
that says something about our fear of intimacy with people."
Russell Matthews, a psychologist in Camp Hill,
Pennsylvania says online communication frees us from seeing the
non-verbal cues of disapproval or anger. Since we're only looking
at words on a screen and not hearing the emotions conveyed in
tone and volume of voice, it's easier to be more direct.
"We disclose more intimate details via
the written word," says Matthews. "Poetry is an example
of communicating emotion and hidden thoughts that has been used
for years. The words stir in us emotions and images. A quiet
individual may find it more difficult to communicate face to
face, hence the safety and attraction of the video screen."
I've encountered people online I'd never meet
in real life. An undercover detective wrote about the death of
his idealism and his terror of being killed on the job. A crab
fisherman described the joys of being alone on the water in the
boat he built himself. A woman who'd become a music teacher and
later gone blind said her only friends were on the computer.
A magician explained how to saw a woman in half, and a cross-dresser
revealed where to buy large high heels. A civil engineer talked
about being elected mayor of a ghost town in Colorado. I met
a nudist, an opera singer and a soldier. A monk and a man who
was afraid to leave his home. I met ordinary people like me,
who felt invisible and out of touch with something deep in their
lives.
When I went online people accepted me, and
some found me desirable, which was potent medicine, but I couldn't
see them or take their measure naturally. I only had their words,
but I still felt free to communicate my deepest thoughts and
feelings to them; to a computer screen.
Computer communication seems like it's here
to stay. Psychologist Matthews speculates on its future.
"I think cyber-talk is taking us into
a New World of human communication like the trading of letters
years ago. That's an art that was lost through the use of the
telephone. Now I think we're spiraling to a different level through
e-mail. I've always liked the concept of human development as
a spiral rather than a straight line. We spiral through our development
and e-mail is just a new stop along the spiral of our development."
Articulating myself freely let me express my
self in the real world as well. I'm trying again with my husband
and I've returned to college.
Online communication gave me a voice. As I
discovered people online, I discovered myself, as every word
I typed linked me gradually back to myself.
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