Advice to anyone who uses AIM in a relationship

[PhoenixInATL]

Hey all--I posted this in response to someone, and thought may others might benefit from it too, so I decided to make it a separate post as well...by the way...the same advice goes for email, although AIM is more dangerous overall...

 

Advice to anyone who uses AIM with someone they're involved with...

 

At first, it's fun and flirty, but eventually too much is read into things, especially if one or both people are feeling insecure or has trust issues. I know this first hand. You can get obsessed with trying to read into it. I got so hung up on "he IM'd me, he didn't IM me, yesterday he sounded enthusiastic, today not so much..." There's been times I've been simply chatty, and he took it that I was "questioning" him or not believing him due to my follow up questions just trying to make conversation. Then it leads to a phone discussion to straighten the stuff out. If we were talking in person, that never would've happened. As computer consultants, we both use AIM at work, so we saw each other online all day every day of the week. Generally, things are fine, but if you go through an awkward spot, AIM makes it even more awkward. You may want to keep to yourself during this time, but simply ignoring them seems uncomfortable because of the stronger and unintended message it may send. Even worse, once you've realized that AIM is not healthy for your relationship, you can't turn it off because of the message THAT will send...even if you try to explain it, the other person will wonder if the explanation is a smoke screen for something worse. Not only that, individual time is healthy for a relationship, but because we were on there day in and day out (because of our jobs), it's like we were in each other's faces for 40-50 hours a week, but without the quality time. It was almost smothering, and almost seemed to dampen our enthusiasm. I felt relief when he went to a client site for two weeks where he couldn't GET online. It felt like we were a "normal" dating couple. We had a chance to miss each other...

 

Just my experience...I will never give my AOL IM (especially my work one) to anyone I'm dating again. If we're married, that's one thing...we expect and want to see each other daily. But if the relationship is still budding, it can feel like too much and cause too many unneccesary misunderstandings, which only lead to "concerns" about the relationship that may have otherwise never existed.

 

Word from the wise...

[Progressive]

Although i DO use Aim/MSN Messenger/ICQ etc... I have always felt it is in NO WAY compareale to actually being in the same room as someone or talking on the telephone!

 

Silly comments that they would see/hear you laughing about can be taken as serous things (even with the added at the end) - people make mistakes, mis-read lines and things just get in a mess.

 

For keeping in touch with friends or people in a long established relationship i would say ok, fine, go for it.

 

For someone starting out in a NEW relationship i would never ever recommend it. It's TOO easy to mis-read things!!!

 

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Says he after spending an hour talking to someone this evening....go figure!)

------------------------------------------------------------------------