Are The E-Mails
Trustworthy
Meghan Daum in her article, “Virtual Love”, says, her relationship with
Pete breaks down shortly after they meet at each other face by face. Daum was a student writer whose published
article was read by a man, named Pete.
Pete wrote her e-mail, entitled “Is This Real Meghan Daum”. Daum wrote back, and they began to write to
each other. About a month after, Pete
phoned her and asked her for dating.
Daum was exciting about her first dating, as she never had a boyfriend
before. But, later, Daum’s attitude
changed: she felt Pete’s behavior was dehumanizing as he tried to have sex with
her. It’s hard to say, who makes this
relationship possible. It may be Daum’s
false because she has falsely relied on the e-mails. My research shows that the e-mails are not so trustworthy. The e-mails cannot describe a real person
completely.
According to the article “Virtual Love” written by Meghan Daum, Daum was
26-years-old lived in New York in November 1996, trying to support herself as a
writer. Usually, she worked for hours
after she woke up, getting the mails, watching TV with her roommates, and then
going to bed (Daum 244). In my opinion,
her daily routine is not an exciting one.
She has to work for hours as soon as she wakes up. Yet, she does not really devote herself into
her works because she keeps getting the mails, watching TV, which means she
keeps looking for something new in her daily life throughout the using of the
media and the mails. She has extra time
and energies to deal with things that do not directly affect to her incomes or
to her school works. From another point
of view, she may be lonely, having no friends; and she tries to communicate with
the outside world throughout the using of the computers and the watching
TVs. And then she goes to bed. The information of her article shows that
she has a place to live, and she probably sleeps by herself. According to the article, she really was a single,
who shared an apartment with her roommates.
She was young, unmarried, a student, depending on the student loans for
living, and having no boyfriend before she met Pete (Daum 257).
In my observation, the e-mails covenant the way of communication,
especially to the shy persons like Meghan Daum. Daum is a shy person. She
can hardly talk to people by telephone (255).
She often prefers to leave her messages in the answering machines,
instead (255). What shows to the
readers is that she has a great anxiety whenever she has to talk to a person or
to communicate with the others. Such a
character is in common to the ladies who are shy. They find an easier way to communicate with the outside world is
to use the e-mails. While using the e-mails,
“there is time to reflect upon and edit one’s ‘composition’, which makes it
easier for the shy to be outgoing” (Turkle 272). Yet, from another view, I think, while she is editing and
re-editing her composition, it is very possible that she is creating an
idealized shadow of herself, which is not a real self of Meghan Daum. Accordingly, the composition represents an
untruthful self as a shadow cannot totally represents herself. So, the Megham Daum inside of the computers
is only a shadow of her, and the shadow is not the real Megham Daum.
According to the article, “Virtual Love”, he thinks Pete has “virtual Love” on her. Pete in his first e-mail told her that how
he admired her article, which she had published over a year ago. And he told her something about his
resulting infatuation with her, and something about his being a sports writer
in California (Daum 255). Is it
necessary to be true, what he has told her?
Esther Dyson in her article, “The Anonymous Voice”, says, “one might
have written something untrue, just because one didn’t want to be burdened with
ones real identity” (263). According to
Dyson, what Peter has told Daum is not necessary to be true. He may write a-500-words of love without
feeling anything about her at all. I
think, his purpose may be to date her or to have sex with her. The truth is that Peter had a family in New
York, and he wanted to visit Daum by the way of his reunion with his family in
New York during the Christmas break (Daum 256). Daum believed Pete had virtual love on her because, according to
what she says in her article, Pete made her happy. She was excited when there was a message from him, mildly
depressed when there wasn’t (255).
Later, he phoned her. When he
asked permission to phone her again, she granted it, as though they “were of an
earlier era” (256). She really thinks
their relationship is just friends.
According to my judgment, the real Pete is a very humorous person. As
Daum has said in her article earlier, Pete’s family was in New York. Pete lived in Los Angeles, and he wanted to
reunion with his family during the Christmas break. So, he visited her by the way of his coming to New York. Daum says about their first date in New York
as the following:
The day of our date, a week before Christmas, was frigid and
sunny. Pete was sitting at the bar of
the restaurant when I arrived. We shook
hands. For a split second, he learned
toward me with his chin, as if to kiss me.
He was shorter than I had pictured, though he was not short. He struck me as clean-cut. He had very nice hands. He wore a very nice shirt. We were seated at a very nice table. I scanned the restaurant for people I knew,
saw none, and couldn’t decide how I felt about that. (258)
The day of our “date”, Pete accordingly
is an honest person because he does, as he said on the phone, arrange a day to
see her. And he is a male as the
identity he revealed to her in the e-mails.
“Pete was sitting at the bar of the restaurant” when she arrived, where
shows Pete has prepared and he is ready to see her. They meet in a restaurant.
The first thing they do is shaking hands. Usually, we students of English 306 in Cal State San Bernardino
come to the classroom. We have known
each other for weeks. And we just say
“Hi!” to each other. So, when they shake
hands, it reveals a desire that they want to touch at each other
physically. And then, Daum, she says in
her article, “For a split second, he leaved toward me with his chin, as if to
kiss me”. The intention of the man is
now clear, he tries to touch her and to kiss her. He is not short; but she is disappointed at his height because
she has idealized that her Pete would be tall.
She says, “He had very nice hands” instead of “he had a single nice
hand”. It may be that he shakes her
hand with his both hands to welcome her.
Or it may be that he holds her arm with one hand; and with the other
hand, he touches her. My judgment is
that he is fantastic in her eyes that she says in the article, “he wore a very
nice shirt”. According to what she
describes in her article, he must be very special to her that she feels they
are “seated at a very nice tale” (258).
In the same page, 258, Daum says, “Outside, walking along Central Park
West at dusk, through the leaves, past the yellow cabs and the splendid lights
of Manhattan at Christmas, he grabbed my hand to kiss me”. O… Oh, the real Pete wants to kiss her. Of course, he cannot kiss her or touch her
by using the computers solely. This is
what I am trying to say in this research paper: the e-mail composition is only
a shadow of the writer. The real Pete
is more complicate than his shadow.
According to my judgment, Pete is an honest and healthy man. And I think he is very humorous, too,
because he actually does kiss her (Daum259).
Now, the reality has prevailed his virtual love, which she creates in
the computers. After Pet kissed her, he
had known how to get her where she lived until he came to where she lived”
(Daum 261). “[H]e became as
unmysterious as anyone next door” (261).
Eventually, the mysterious Pete is what the author calls “the virtual
love”. The virtual love is the
mysterious one, and the mysterious one is the virtual love. Accordingly, the virtual love cannot sustain
when the reality occupies the spaces of her daily life. Therefore, the reality prevails the virtual
love.
The virtual love is like the shadow of
Pete, which touches her heart when she is young, lonely, and ignorant (255).
The virtual love is a shadow of Pete and it can be any man or any woman. From page 257 to 261, Daum blames on Pete
because he has destroyed her idealized shadow of Pete. The article says, in just a few days, she
becomes mad at him. Days after the first
dating, he read the newspapers on the table of their breakfast instead of talking
to each other (259). From her article,
I can tell that Daum loves her idealized Pete more than the real Pete because,
first, she loves him and, later, hates him.
Pete, on the other hand challenges the real self of Daum as he has
entitled in his first e-mail he sends to her, “Is This Real Meghan Daum?” The story says, Pete breaks into her life,
and he phones her, dates her, and kisses her.
A real person may be more exciting than the idealized shadow. Or an idealized shadow may be more beautiful
than the real self. And the readers can
go back and forth, who is right, or who is wrong-- Daum or Peter? The readers can debate over and over again,
and there is no real answer for it. My
point is not who is right or wrong. My
point is that there is a certain type of shadow that is untruthful and
unrealistic to the real world, and one cannot understand Pete thoroughly by
simply looking at the e-mails alone.
A counter argument to against Meghan Daum’s belief is that Daum is not
really like the idealized grown up lady as she tries to say who she is in the
computers in my judge. As I know, a
grown up lady usually will accept the way he is. A grown up lady will not complain when Pete kisses her because
kissing a lady is the way he wants to have the relationship with her. My sister, for example, who already has
several boyfriends, seldom tells others about her relationship with her
boyfriends; a grown up lady does the same that a grown up lady is independent
from letting the third person to tell her what to do the relationship with her
boyfriends. And, as I cannot remember
any private relation between a man and a woman, I think, usually, a grown up
lady keeps her romance secret from the third person. But now, look at Daum.
She is mad at Pete because he tries to kiss her. She publishes her story that many people can
know about her relationship with Pete.
The article says she creates herself an image of grown up lady in the
e-mails; but, in reality, her thinking and her action are childish. She is not the idealized self-shadow, who
she composes in the computers.
The e-mails have covenanted the shy person to communicate with the
others. My research shows the
composition Meghan Daum sends and receives from the e-mails cannot represent
the real person Pete thoroughly. In my
judgment, Meghan is by luck that she does not have Pete rapping and murdering
her after an unsuccessful relationship in New York. The compositions we receive from the e-mails often are merely the
shadows of the writers. How much can
one rely on the e-mails for a good relationship with the others? My answer is that, ladies, you have better
not to believe the e-mails at all.
Works Cited
Behrens,
Laurence et. al. Writing and Reading
Across the Curriculum.
New York: Longman, 2003.
Daum,
Meghan. “Virtual Love”. Quoted in Writing and Reading Across
the Curriculum. Ed. By Laurence Behrens and Leonard F.
Rosen.
New York: Longman, 2003. 254.
Dyson,
Esther. “The Anonymous Voice”. Quoted in Writing and
Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. By Laurence Behrens and
Leonard F. Rosen. New York: Longman, 2003.
264.
Pham,
Alex. “Boy, You Fight Like a
Girl”. Writing and Reading Across
the Curriculum. Ed. By Laurence Behrens and Leonard F.
Rosen.
New York: Longman, 2003. 280.
Turkle,
Sherry. “Cyberspace and Identity”. Quoted in Writing and
Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. By Laurence Behrens and
Leonard F. Rosen. New York: Longman, 2003.
271.