Can you fall in love online?
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
kevin1gamer
Ensign
I thought I was in love with someone online, but she just broke my heart about 5 minutes ago...
TheLonelySquire
Vice Admiral
It absolutely can lead to a real life love. And even if it doesn't, you at least can make a friend. Good luck.
I know for an absolute fact that you can. We've been married for almost four years now, in fact. 
Of course you can. Its simply one medium among many others for meeting and interacting with someone. But as others say - meet as soon as you can. The physical interaction (sexual and otherwise) of any relationship is too important to leave aside for too long.
Well, I met my wife in person at an internship we did at a university out of state for both of us.
We met the old fashioned way, but after the job ended, we emailed and IMed incessantly. Those were the days before Vonage and free nights and weekends.
So without the internet, we never woulda bonded like we eventually did. Woulda just been a summer fling.
We met the old fashioned way, but after the job ended, we emailed and IMed incessantly. Those were the days before Vonage and free nights and weekends.
So without the internet, we never woulda bonded like we eventually did. Woulda just been a summer fling.
Very recently I've been trying out chatting online. I've had little experience with this a few years ago, nothing since. Awhile ago I joined a couple of sites to try to connect with someone.
Frankly at first I've felt a bit overwhelmed: there are a lot of people looking to connect out there. Ideally, of course you hope to connect with someone geographically near you, but it doesn't always work out that way.
Last night I had a surprise. I won't say unexpected surprise because a surprise is supposed to be inherently unexpected.
Anyway around 12:30 AM I was just perusing who was online from around the world on Mate1.com. I saw this cute girl and checked out her profile. I was about to click away when completely on impulse I sent her an invitation to chat. She replied yes, and like to strangers we began the cautious dance of little questions and answers that led to exchanging points-of-view and longer responses. This led to exchanging thoughts and feelings about so many things. Next thing I know it's 5:30 AM!
Now I know communicating online even after you've exchanged pictures (which we did) can create a false sense of connection and emotional intimacy. Your imagination is filling in gaps in that person's character and how they behave and how they express themselves because you're not face-to-face.
Even so I felt something. I did my best to be open and honest with her in regard to many of the things she asked me and I feel she reciprocated. We shared some pretty personal feelings, things you quite likely might not say face-to-face unless you felt that connection.
We've made a virtual date for this afternoon. She is five hours ahead of me in Europe and when I go online at 3 or 4PM here it'll be mid evening for her.
I went to bed distracted after we stopped talking. And since I've gotten up I'm still distracted. I keep thinking about the long odds of connecting with someone from a first simple impulse. I admit I look forward to speaking with her again and I may even be a little anxious. If this pans out then I'm going to try hooking up a webcam and speaker/microphone system on this end and hopefully she could do the same.
I can't stop wondering about her own little mannerisms and how she must speak and what her voice could sound like. I do know that today something is different, different in the thought that maybe there could be someone out there thinking about me unlike the days before.
It's weird and wonderful and I'm not sure what to make of it.
It is possible to fall in love online. A friend of mine met somebody over the Internet, and they've been happily married ever since, over five years, I believe...
Absolutely. You can fall in love, and live quite happily.
It can be argued, however, that these two options are mutually exclusive.
It think the internet is quite a limited communication channel, and mostly because we're interacting with one another through text rather than our full range of senses. And while we can inject our personalities into that text, I am reminded me of the old adage of a picture speaking a thousand words. We only see a small part of a person -- the part that is considered and deliberate. Real life communicates a lot more, and is a lot more spontaneous than text.
I feel that many of the impressions we form about people online are tainted by our imaginations, which is invariably love guided. The areas we don't see are the areas where we incorrectly assume compatibility and nurture a passive fondness.
While this can happen to some extent in real life too, at least there you don't have the excuses as everything is potentially readable; but here that is to be expected.
So although one can feel love, we should ask what is it love for. How much of your love is for the real person, and how much is love for something in your imagination, that you're projecting onto that person?
You can't touch or smell the person, but you can video chat and have the opportunity to speak to them, to see them and hear them. It's not limited to text.
I agree that video and audio do create a more complete experience of a person, and the first of these more so than the second, but it still lacks the soul and subtlety of a physical tangible presence. So much so that falling in love over the internet seems to me like quite a sad way to feel love.
poor choice of words on my part.
That without the soul and subtlety of a physical tangible presence, it isn't true love for the person, but love for something in one's own imagination.
To call the feelings of an internet relationship "love" is sad because it is lacking these important parts of love. It's a expression used by a person who either doesn't really know what love is, or who craves the idea of being in love so much, that this approximation they choose to believe is equal in merit and credibility to true love.
That without the soul and subtlety of a physical tangible presence, it isn't true love for the person, but love for something in one's own imagination.
To call the feelings of an internet relationship "love" is sad because it is lacking these important parts of love. It's a expression used by a person who either doesn't really know what love is, or who craves the idea of being in love so much, that this approximation they choose to believe is equal in merit and credibility to true love.
Oh, I see. Well, I disagree completely. It's possible that either of the scenarios you present could be true, but I don't believe that's always the case. And of course there's the fact that "love" is subjective and not really something we can define for others (though that doesn't seem to stop people).
I'm reminded of the old adage that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
A person's words when put straight onto paper can provide a unique insight into their thought processes, their anxieties and neuroses, their mental state, their deepest feelings and desires, and even their behavioural quirks. It is quite easy, even looking at the posts here on the TrekBBS, to see the sorts of personalities shine through the posts people make, which are usually consistent and precise in their patterns, and any deviation is quite often easily spotted and picked upon by the ones who pay attention.
On the other hand, you could say that this situation is the exact opposite of falling in love at first sight only to discover that they have certain deep-seated flaws. It's an extreme in that sense, but something that does happen.
As RJDiogenes puts it nicely, internet relationships are really no different to the old tradition of pen friends, only without ink, paper and stamps, and with added speed and flexibility. It's another form of communication, no less valid than talking over the telephone or sending pictures to another.
I agree that once people meet in person, things change, and I feel it's a combination of various things interacting that help complete the picture of one's friendship to another. Thus, people, when discussing online loving relationships, urge others to meet up in real life as soon as is possible - it is very easy for real life meetings to either reinforce the feelings one has when chatting online, as well as destroying the carefully-constructed imaginations of either or both parties. Speaking of which:
So although one can feel love, we should ask what is it love for. How much of your love is for the real person, and how much is love for something in your imagination, that you're projecting onto that person?
The online world is not an easily trusting place. People can make up identities easily and lull the more vulnerable into a false sense of security, sometimes with tragic results. The impressions people can get from reading other peoples' posts and chat remarks can be false ones indeed, reading the wrong signals at the very least, or falling for a completely fantastical persona at the very worse. So I can see why some people are not too keen on using something like the Internet to start a relationship that could go deeper than people imagine they would.
This is actually quite a very important aspect to consider in the subject of online love: what is love?
I think I'm going to agree with Kestra on this. To me, love suggests that a connection has been made somewhere, no matter how that might be, and it can mean the world to some people even though it may not even register on others who feel that more information is required before the criteria fulfilling their idea of "love" can be met. Love is subjective, and perhaps if two people, who get along well with each other, also share that same subjective definition of love, then, things were meant to be. That is my theory, it is mine, and it belongs to me, and I own it, and what it is too. [/AnneElk(Miss)]
But what do I know?
People do what they want, and if it works, great! There are many successful, lasting relationships formed online - making them as legitimate and valid as anyone else's. If you are fearful, judgemental, and over-analytical of everything, especially new ways of doing things, then you are probably not predisposed to falling head over heels in love to begin with, online or otherwise. Romance is romance, wherever it happens, and is never sad. It's a pretty joyful thing.
True. Online, I appear to be an intelligent and dignified person, prone to brilliant philosophical insights. In real life, I'm more like a Don Martin cartoon. Splortch.
Also, in many ways, the Internet allows us to bypass many of the drawbacks to a face-to-face meeting. How many of us have had dates where we have made small talk, perhaps touched on a few issues and personal beliefs, and walked away feeling a lack of connection? Yet, if we had met that same person on a Forum and been involved in a variety of discussions over days or weeks, a different relationship may evolve. I often think that about the people I pass on the street or at the mall; many of them could probably be friends of mine if we encountered each other online, yet in real life we pass each other by unknowing.
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