Gesture

I do not think that you can fully translate gesture to the internet. The tone of a person's voice is very important, and impossible to translate. For instance bad things can come from sarcasm on the internet that has not been followed with the word "sarcasm" in a pair of *asterisks* to show that you are preforming the act of sarcasm. One time I was IMing with one of my guy friends, and complaining about how I did not have a date to the upcoming dance. It went something like this:

Me: It's really sad how I'm soooo pathetic that I can't even get a date. :(
Him: Your not pathetic.
Me: Really now then why is my patheticness eating my head.
Him: Well then we should just go to the dance together.
Me: Yeah, ok.
Him: Ok I gotta to bed.
Me: K, night
Him: Night

Somehow I ended up committing to a date without realizing it. My "Yeah, ok" was supposed to have a drawn out ok, more like "ooook". But that did not translate through the internet. I was just talking out my butt, and did not realize that his invitation was sincere. However I did find out. The next day at school it had circulated throughout our friends. I ended up getting my best friend to call him on the phone the day of the dance, and tell him I was not coming. Then I ended up going anyway, he got the wrong idea, and was mad at my without telling me for weeks. Without the power of voice inflection and tone the internet can be very dangerous. People can easily get the wrong idea.

You just can not get the same level of emotion either. Just because you write *cries* into your e-mail does not mean that the other person is going to feel bad for you. It takes real tears in person for the other person to really get the idea. Which is why it is extremely weird when adults try to start relationships on the internet. You can not get a good sense of the other person from a few emoticons. :P