Your opinions on Cyber Relationships?

[shyanne]

Okay I was just wondering genrally what people think of Cyber Relationships. I personally have tried it a few times and it has not worked. But I've heard of people that have met online and had a relationship online then proceeded to be very happy together and get married. I tend to keep online friends as friends and nothing more.

 

But a lot of my friends have said they love people online and I don't see how it's possible to really love someone. Sure you can like someone a lot and share their veiws, care about them and what happens to them.

 

I don't know it is just something I'm rather interested in and wondered what peoples veiws are on it.

 

~S.

i think you should be very careful with online friendships.. it's very easy for people to mislead you and easy to tell lies... you seem to be a smart person.... your right about how it's not possible to fall in love with someone online. sure you can truly like someone but not in love.. you can't truly know someone until you meet them. i always wonder about people who talk about being in love with someone they never even met. i think they may not be very "relationship" smart. if you know what i mean. something just not right about that.

[novaseeker]

It *can* work, but it's risky to let yourself fall in love with someone you have never met in real life. They *may* be the same as online, and then again they *may* not be ... until you meet them in real life, you never really know. So while it *can* work, it's a significant risk, I think ... and so it's a question of whether you're willing to take that risk.

[monkey1]

Whether you've met in person or online, either way getting into a relationship is risky. You're never quite sure what you're getting into and what the person's like, their history and so on.

 

I met my current bf online, even though we're still apart, we have a really great connection. He and I started chatting and then we talked on the phone here and there and eventually were able to meet in person. He was pretty much the same as he was online in person where I was much more shy in person because I thought he was really cute and I liked him a lot.

 

We both decided that after we had met that we really did like each other and decided to give a relationship a shot. I was kinda weary, but figure that I really did like him a lot and since then we've grown to love each other a lot. So it is possible to find love online. At least the thing I like about online relationships is you get to talk to each other a lot more and get to know them before you ended up sleeping with them right off the bat.

 

Just boils down to how willing are you to open yourself up to someone online who you don't know much about.

[Daddy Bear]

i have no wish to change anyone's mind, but allow me to at least swim against the current here. i adamantly believe that the essense of a human soul, the thing most critical for the creation of a love bond, can be conveyed in writing. Take the example of Charing Cross:

 

It was not a traditional romance but they had a deep connection.

respectfully, DN--don't cop out. was it love or not?

 

i do agree that there should be intentions to meet if at all possible (love and togetherness walk hand in hand, after all) but, if there is no love unless there is face to face contact, then how do the blind fall in love? fondle each other to find out? preposterous!

 

dozens of success anecdotes, anybody? link removed

[itsallgrand]

I do think it is possible to fall in love online. There are myriad ways of falling in love, and loving somebody.

 

That said: Human beings need physical contact, the presense of other human beings around them, to do things together beyond talk and online communication/phone communication.

 

You put your heart on the line if you allow yourself to fall in love via correspondence. The person may have other aspects that are not good for you once you spend face to face and real-life time together. But the possibility is there that it can work.

 

Also, there is no doubt in my mind that people can become carried away by fantasy. We see that in online AND offline relationships. Some couples are living in their own heads in fantasy-land and see each other every day or live together!

[novaseeker]

I agree that there are risks online or offline, but there are so many things someone cannot communicate online ... a lot of subtlety about the person, their surroundings, their other relationships with family and friends, how they actually live and act and exist in real life ... none of that can be adequately conveyed other than in person. So while I agree that there are risks in both situations, and that online situations can work out, in my view they present incrementally more risk than situations where you meet people offline because there are just so many areas that you can't even begin to know or evaluate until you meet in person. That's why I think the safer course, if you're meeting people online, is to take the relationship offline and into real life as soon as possible and if at all possible before getting too emotionally involved. That doesn't mean that if you don't do that, it can never work out ... it just means, in my view, that there is incrementaly more risk for you, and it's a question of whether you're willing to run that risk, which is a question only each person can answer for themselves.

[itsallgrand]

Yeah. I've heard of online relationships being described as 'relationships turned inside out'. I think that is pretty apt.

Everything is reversed.

plus, I can't over the feeling of safety of face-to-face meetings. I would want to meet very soon.

I did meet one person who I met over the comp. It was a complete fluke that I met him, we became friends online gradually over a long period of time, with some phone calls. We decided to meet up in a city that was in between the two of us for a mini-vacation. It was great fun, we liked each other and got along great. We still keep in touch.

That was a friendship with flirting only. I can't bear my heart easily, and online is just too much risk for me falling-in-love-wise.

[SilverManic]

From what I've read people seem to differ from one side to the other. I guess I'm starting to fall at nutral. I think that online relationships can work out. I just don't think that you can honestly say you love someone until you know that they are like that representation in your mind.

Their humour, that huge smile you see over the webcam, the endless voice chats you have with eachother. These can help I guess and technology is getting so advanced that it is getting easier to tell who is legitimate or not.

 

But love is built up over time... right? Well so I've been told over and over again but never really 'truly' being in love has cast me into the pit of people who use it as a word and not a feeling. Love to me shouldn't go away after time.

 

Then again I'm off to visit someone half way accross the world, in a contry I've never been too. We both like eachother. But we have never once said the world love. Not mentioned having a relationship or anything like that. He lives in CA I live in England. I've talked to him on the phone, webcam, mic known him for a while and as much as I'd have liked to have met him sooner it's not possible.

 

Finantually I could prehaps aford the relationship. But realisticly I'm doing my teacher training in august and shall be moving to China for a year to work with children. If we meet and get on romanticly it will be difficult.

 

With a 15 hour time gap we would be relying on email, text messages and ocationally might get to talk on msn messanger. If I still feel the same way about him when I get home from China (a years time) and he still feels the same way about me. That we like eachother 'not love' I would consider moving over to the US and getting to know him better offline. But right now my carea is important. I have to put that at the top of my list.

 

If things work out or not who knows. But wasn't it the intial friendship that brought you to like that person and think of them romanticly? Before I had seen his photograph I one day blurted out that I like him, I think he has a wicked sense of homour and that he's a good listner etc etc.

 

I could go on and on about this forever. But the simple fact is that no matter how much you think you might get on with this person it could go horribly wrong. I wrote this post long before I liked this guy. But I still stand by my intial words 'you can't fall in love with someone you haven't met' but you might know your going to fall in love with them if they are who they say they are.

 

~S.

[Arielle]

Since my situation was a little different I'm not sure it's even "on topic". But I'll give it a shot.

 

I met my boyfriend first while he was enjoying a long vacation in the United States (visiting his parents). He lives and works overseas. It's a bit complicated and you can look at my previous posts. But we were fine with having a cyber relationship, with occasional visits a few times per year.

 

I hate talking to anyone on the phone overseas because of that lag time between when someone talks and someone actually hears what you're saying, so we communicated mostly by email. It's a tough way to communicate because you don't know what the other person is thinking while you're typing your message. Face to face, you can tell if someone is not understanding what you are saying and you can change how you're approaching them. In email communications, they can misunderstand what you are saying and it can take a few messages back and forth before things get smoothed over.

 

We eventually broke up, and I think the limitations of emailing played a large part. However, I figure just because it happened once doesn't mean it will always happen. We had wonderful email conversations and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again in the context of meeting someone new online and eventually setting up a meeting.

 

All right!!! I just put in my two cents worth!!!

[Ross_K]

I was in an online relationshipship once, I was in love with her and she had strong feelings for me. It was what was on the inside, her personality that I fel in love with, just like how it happens in real life. The person doesn't need to be physically in your presense.

 

Anyway, while it was wonderful at the same time there was a lot of pain as well, because of the fact that we lived so far away from each other, I'm in England and she was in the US.

 

And I agree about the fact that the person could actually come accross a lot different when you meet them in person. When I spoke to her on the phone, although she spoke the same as she does online she came accross different, it felt like I was speaking to a new person or like I was getting to know her all over again, somehow she came accross as the sort of person that wouldn't be interested in me but maybe that was just me being paranoid.

 

Anyway I suppose it depends on whether people think it's worth the risk or not. If you can easily find relationships offline then it's probably not worth the risk, otherwise, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea. If someone lives near you then you should definatley both meet as soon as you can, if they live thousands of miles away though, well, there ain't much you can do about it, maybe it'd be a good idea to start talking on the phone early on. Bloody expensive though

[Batya33]

I agree with those who said that you have to meet in person to see if romantic feelings and chemistry are there - typically nothing to do with looks - just to do with presense, vibes, energy - things you cannot experience just by typing or talking to someone you've never met in person. If you've never met in person you have no idea how they treat waitstaff at a restaurant or their manners in general when in public/dealing with the public. You don't know what their eyes/body looks like when they are angry or tense.

 

I don't agree that having "in love" feelings on line means that you don't care about looks or are above caring about looks - rather, I think it is much much easier to have in love feelings on line or on the phone because you always know you do not have to deal with that person if things get rough - even if you think you would hang around forever or be committed, you know that with a click of the phone or the mouse, you can be history and disappear especially if you live far away. It is a very safe way to have a relationship because it is largely based on fantasy so you get to do all the missing and yearning and make grand romantic statements, but you don't have to deal with the person in real life.

 

On the other hand I think on line web sites are a great vehicle for meeting people - I believe like the others in meeting ASAP in real life to see if you click in person.

 

I also wanted to add that I believe you can make close platonic friends that you never meet in person because in that case it doesn't matter as much whether you click in person since even if you don't, you can go back to just communicating on line. I have met in person about 6-7 women this way and yes the "chemistry" was different in person but it doesn't really matter.

 

Finally, yes, you can believe you are "in love" with someone you've never met in person - but having those feelings to me means you have those feelings for the person you believe he or she is from how he or she is on line or on the phone - in the same way that feeling in love with someone you just met may very well be based only on the image of the person and not the true person.

[Daddy Bear]

true, Batya... when you meet someone online your feelings are for the person you perceive them to be, not who they are. but don't you see--that's all any of us can ever have. a woman can be married for ten, twenty, thirty years or more, and suddenly find out that her husband is a serial killer. that doesn't mean that she didn't ever love him--it means that she fell out of love when she discovered that he was not what he represented himself to be and was not to be trusted. in my observation the same dynamic holds true of Internet relationships.

 

here's something on which we might all agree: real love is not mere appreciation for a person's attributes but a bond formed of mutual honesty, understanding and trust, and a man who truly loves his wife will not leave her if she becomes disfigured beyond recognition in a fire. thereforeeee, no matter how much you both have revealed of your souls and your true intimate natures through your conversations, if you have met someone online and later lose interest because he or she has big ears, an annoying habit or a few too many pounds for your liking, then you were never really in love.

[novaseeker]

Perhaps, but it's this kind of thing that Batya was referring to that I think is missing until you actually meet the person in the flesh:

 

esense, vibes, energy - things you cannot experience just by typing or talking to someone you've never met in person. If you've never met in person you have no idea how they treat waitstaff at a restaurant or their manners in general when in public/dealing with the public. You don't know what their eyes/body looks like when they are angry or tense.

 

There's just things that you can't communicate or pick up on without being face to face with a person. That doesn't mean that online relationships are disasters waiting to happen, but in my view it is an additional risk that you run when deciding to fall for someone without having this kind of information. It may turn out fine in the end, but it's an additional risk, in my view, which is why I personally think it's best to take the relationship offline ASAP so that you can see the person as they are in the flesh.

[Daddy Bear]

if both people are completely honest with each other then i think the risk of failure is minimal. essense, vibes and energy all come from the soul, and i don't believe that the visually impaired, to use that example again, are incapable of perceiving such things. however, i would say that those traits are far easier to divine over the telephone than through written words alone.

 

mistreatment of waitstaff is a symptom of a larger problem that can surely be picked up on after a few hundred or so emails/phone calls...

 

take it offline as soon as possible? absolutely! i couldn't agree more. what person in love would want anything else?

[love8me]

we all have different views with regards to online dating but from my experience, i met my fiancee online and we are getting married this year. there were a lot of ups & downs but we made it through love knows no distance

[SilverManic]

hmmm I finally met the guy that made me come up with this thred. He was everything I thought he was. Only better looking. I pretty much fell for him but he doesn't think we'd work.

I begin to think that online relationships are too painful to get involed with.

~S.

[novaseeker]

What actually happened? What are his reasons?

 

I'm sorry this happened to you.

[SilverManic]

He thinks our personalities are too different for a relationship to work. Nothing bad happened. We will stay friends and I will likely come here for school after I finish a year of traveling since I made better friends over here then I ever did back home.

Things just work that way sometimes. Yep it's painful but I'll deal with it.

~S.