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176 Concetta Stewart, et al.

None of the respondents ever directed their complaints and criti-
cisms at M2, and instead address their rebuttals to “others” or
“some people.” These comments also suggest an orientation toward
the self rather than the group. The one exception was F1, a white
American female, whose remark was in agreement with M2’s origi-
nal suggestion. In addition, while the men’s comments might ap-
pear as openness and self-disclosure, which Ting-Toomey (1985)
characterizes as leading to vulnerability, a closer reading reveals
that these messages are not intimate and that the senders may ac-
tually be outlining their boundaries to the rest of the group. An-
other interpretation may also be that these individuals are
self-confident enough to reveal this information about themselves
and don’t feel vulnerable at all.

SEGMENT 4

Another interesting exchange involved M7’s (a white American
male) banner.

M7:

************************In the military, you can be a REAL
man!****

M1, a white American male:

What’s this with the military quote? I spent four years as a
U.S. army paratrooper.

M4, a white American male:

. . . since I’m a psuedo-man (I’m not in the army so I can’t be
real) . . .

The replies were both directly and indirectly critical of M7’s banner,
and not the actual topic of the message. These statements could also
be illustrative of a lack of concern for other’s (M7’s) face. They seem
more concerned with self-face as their statements were about who
they were, rather than who M7 was or what he might have actually
meant by his banner. Since this conversation occurred very early in
the listserv, it serves as a good example of problems that can arise