Update:Long distance friendship and sex

[quietgrl]

i don't know how to delete my thread.

[Batya33]

To me meeting someone you have never met in person is not a first date - it is a first meeting to see if it makes sense to go out on a real date.

[quietgrl]

I can't wait to meet this man but i'm also scared to meet him.I've known this man for 2 1/2 years online and he's everything i want in a man. He's good, he's bad and he can be ugly. .The only thing left is meeting him face to face. He's good news has maded me happy.

[Batya33]

You have no idea if he is everything you want in a man because you haven't met this man in person.

[quietgrl]

Batya,

 

I know that's why i can't wait to meet him face to face..This is it the final step.

[Batya33]

If I were you I would re-think that perspective. It is a first step - the first step towards seeing if you should go on a real date. There are many subsequent steps before you decide whether this man is for you - at least 6 to 9 months of consistent in person dating, meeting your families, friends, colleagues, etc.

[quietgrl]

Batya,

I have bad luck with men so either way.I want this man in my life either as a friend or lover if it happen.it happen but i'm glad this man is a good friend.

[Batya33]

OK - good luck! If it doesn't work out as either, it is not about bad luck - on line relationships of this sort rarely translate well into real life.

[quietgrl]

I'm not going to get my hopes up high because i know we'll never be more then friends.I'm going to be fine.

[Batya33]

I'm not going to get my hopes up high because i know we'll never be more then friends.I'm going to be fine.

 

OK - was just thrown off by your other post where you said he was everything you were looking for and you were wondering about birth control, etc.

[Sheyda]

^ I think that is because her first flicker of faith in men may have been crushed after reading this comment:

 

on line relationships of this sort rarely translate well into real life.

 

quietgrl - Online relationships can work, but I think you have the right approach by expecting friendship at the most. That way, you will not be disappointed if you do not form a relationship and if you continue your friendship you will still be satisfied. On the other hand, don't be too pessimistic as the negative attitude can be picked up by others and this could ruin your first meeting with him.

[Batya33]

I have a very positive attitude about on-line relationships. They are great for typing and talking and the level of connection you can achieve through typing and talking. To expect that they will translate into a real-life romantic connection typically is an unrealistic expectation. I've never heard of being realistic as being "negative." I have heard of being realistic as using common sense to avoid taking risks that are unnecessary for your emotional or physical safety/well being.

 

What could ruin the first meeting is quietgrl's waffling over what she expects and wants from this meeting - her posts waffle between wanting s_x, wanting just friendship, etc. Someone like me and others telling her to be realistic is a great way to get a realistic perspective, in my opinion and be more grounded in what the expectation is.

 

You are entitled to your negative judgment of my opinion of on-line interactions of course.

[quietgrl]

OK - was just thrown off by your other post where you said he was everything you were looking for and you were wondering about birth control, etc.

 

He is everything i want in a man but my luck with men is bad.

[Batya33]

My opinion - if you are going to stick to that negative mindset (and assumption that it is all about bad luck - and not about anything you do or do not do, including being negative), you are wasting your time and his time meeting him and you also can't know - because of that negative mindset - whether he is everything you are looking for. When you do choose to do the work and get a healthy perspective you will know then what qualities you are looking for and how to make yourself the type of person who can be involved in a healthy relationship.

[Sheyda]

Batya, I never said that your opinion was negative. When I mentioned negative in my post I was referring to the pessimistic attitude quietgrl seems to adopt most of the time; thinking all men are only after sex, no men want sex with commitment, etc.

 

As for my comment on your post; I noticed through quietgrl's posts on this forum that she has little to no faith in men. At the beginning of this thread she appeared to have some hope, but now it seems to have gone again and other members' previous attempts to restore her hope have all failed. I am not in any way blaming this on you, as quietgrl is responsible for her own actions: it was her own choice to believe that her online relationship was not one of those that translate well into real life. She could have read your comment and chose to believe, through her own judgment, that her relationship is one of those that transfers well into real life, but she did not. My point is that I think this is one of those cases where the person asking for help really has to help themselves with faith, hope and optimism before others can give them more help. If quietgrl is now choosing to slip back into the pessimism, there's nothing we can say to help her.

[BeStrongBeHappy]

i say let yourself get excited about the meeting, but try to think of it like meeting up with any friend you haven't seen in a while and would love to get together and catch up with... too much expectation (or expectation of a 'date') as the first meeting can put too much pressure on both of you since the dynamics of conversing in person can be very different than in email or short phone conversations... you also need time to adapt to each other's physical presense, and adjust any expectations there, positive or negative...

 

i take it as a positive sign that he wants to see you sooner rather than later, but open the door to friendship first, and wait to see what happens next... you both together need to decide whether the face to face meeting was something that made you want to take the friendship forward into something more, or keep it as a nice long distance friendship. face to face meetings can lead to happy endings in relationships, but also can explode a bubble of expectations, which can be quite painful if one person decides in advance they *must* have a date, while the other decides they don't want to pursue that forward after meeting.

[Batya33]

I agree that pessimism is not productive. I also believe encouraging her to have expectations about someone she has never met in real life where there has been no meaningful talk about having a romantic relationship is leading her down the wrong path.

[quietgrl]

This is going to be an interesting meeting that's all i have to say but to answer your other question.i have to think negative to protect myself.honetly.I want this guy to be my long term bf and i want him to be the first man i experience outercourse or intercourse.

I don't know how to explain it but there is something about this man that tell me.this is the guy worth fighting for.

[Batya33]

Just stay focused on the following, please (in my humble opinion)

 

For purposes of whether he is compatible with you for a romantic relationship, consider him to be a complete stranger - the qualities you believe he has and shares in common with you, what you are "attracted" to may have nothing to do with who he is in real life because of all of the myriad of factors of meeting someone in person that can never be discerned from typing and talking: body language, your in-person dynamic, eye contact, presense, energy, vibes, looks, etc.

 

Assume you are meeting a pen pal for the first time. That's all this is.

 

And, added to that realize that you are very vulnerable to unrealistic expectations and thereforeeee may have inadvertently superimposed on his typing and talking what you are looking for (or think you are looking for)

 

If he is willing to have sex with you right away assume he does this often and consider whether you want to risk one or more stds.

[quietgrl]

Well My hopes of us being more then friends will only stay in my head.He said he doesn't want anything from me 2 1/2 years ago so i don't have to worry about a romantic relationship or sex from him.I'm not his type anyway.I'm just going to go into starbuck and enjoy myself. I'm telling you me and men are like oil and water.

[Batya33]

If you're like oil and water and it seems you clearly want a relationship, what is stopping you from doing the work to figure out how to make that better? And of course it's not "all men" as you know you cannot generalize.

[Sheyda]

I agree with this 100%. As I've already said; expect friendship at the most and be happy if this meeting leads to a continuance of that friendship, but do not be so pessimistic that you believe everything will go completely wrong and you'll hate each other in the end. Stay in the middle ground: this is where you're guaranteed the least amount of hurt. If you stay in the lower ground and be pessimistic you will always be feeling pain all the time because of all the negativity you surround yourself with. This will be a new day, just like every day and you should treat it like a new day by staying in this middle ground for a change. Don't be pessimistic and treat it like it's the same nasty day from the past when someone stopped being your friend/rejected you because it is not the same day.

 

 

 

I do not see how answering her question with my own experience would give her too many expectations. I said that it was not a date at the first meeting, but we did have a date later that night. I am sure quietgrl is smart enough to know that my experiences will not be identical to hers else she would not be convinced right now that she has bad luck with men. I also do not see how my advice on actually meeting him is giving her too many expectations:

 

 

 

However, if you believe expecting a continued friendship at the most is having too high of an expectation, I have nothing else to say on the subject.

[Batya33]

However, if you believe expecting a continued friendship at the most is having too high of an expectation, I have nothing else to say on the subject.

 

I think expecting to continue to type and talk over the Internet is not too high an expectation.