Falling In Love Over The Internet

[Itisnotlogical]

I doubt it simply because of the ease of lying over the internet. There's several people I've met in online games who assumed I was a woman since I picked one of the female characters to play as. I could set up a totally phoney-baloney Facebook account with a bunch of stock photos of some chick in a bikini and nobody would have any reason to think that I was some dude sitting at a computer.

So, simply due to the fact that the Internet is easy to lie over, I'd have to say no. Remember the stereotypical scenario where a woman sends a picture to a man, the man says "Let's meet", and the picture turned out to be one of the woman's definitely more attractive sister?

 

[Kestra]

Love can happen anywhere!

 

[RAMA]

Has anyone here ever fallen in love with someone over the internet?
I have, I haven't even physically met her yet but I know I'm in love with her and she says she is in love with me. I was wondering if I'm just kidding myself or if anyone else has experienced this and if it's ever gone on to something more serious?

I don't think you can fall in love till you meet someone. I DO think you can become attracted/interested.

RAMA

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Met my girlfriend over the Internet. Fell in love with her before we actually met and vice-versa. That was 12 years ago. Still together. Warning: it can be a rough road though. We're both strange people who like to take things at our own pace, but it still took about three years to iron out all the major rough patches. The millions of minor rough patches still exist as they do in all relationships.

 

[Subcommander R.]

Anything can happen. But there's concerns. Compatibility for example. Some things can't be conveyed online and they can throw a wrench into the works.

And of course, be careful of safety at all times. There are a lot of dangerous people in this world. Keep first meetings to public places.

 

[C_Miller]

Yes, of course it can. I mean true connections don't only occur in the bedroom, but they can occur at anytime, even when you're just having a conversation. You can have a conversation on the internet and now with the advent of Skype and other forms of cheap video messaging, it's only going to get easier.

However, I will tell you that the internet provides an extremely deep mask. Just using the people in this thread. Warped9, Yeoman Randi, Jeff O'Connor are posters that I know through their posts and I appreciate what they bring to the board and I think I could go as far as to say that I generally like them. But their handles are their masks and for all we know, Warped9 could hate TOS and be obsessed with Voyager or Enterprise, as a clear example.

I know that's rather silly, but it still illustrates the point. Regardless of the website, the internet provides complete and total annonimity. I know several friends who have eharmony accounts and they are for all intents and purposes playing a character or at the very least playing an exagerated version of themselves. You have to watch out for that. So, while I think you can fall in love over the internet, there's always the worry that you're falling in love with someone that's not real. Although that doesn't slight the feeling itself.

 

[Kestra]

I think you'd find that practically everyone who believes in falling in love online would also suggest meeting in person as soon as possible. No one thinks that we are identical online and in person, but that it's still possible to fall in love with a version of that person. Which is what happens in RL anyway. We fill in gaps as we get to know them better.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

I think you'd find that practically everyone who believes in falling in love online would also suggest meeting in person as soon as possible. No one thinks that we are identical online and in person, but that it's still possible to fall in love with a version of that person. Which is what happens in RL anyway. We fill in gaps as we get to know them better.

I agree. I don't think interacting over the Internet is really much different than interacting with each other in the early stages of a relationship. A lot of people would say they were in love in the early stages of their romance, but the more they got to know each other their incompatibilities became too much. Besides look at our divorce rate. There is no guarantee any relationship will last no matter what you do.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I fell in love with someone I met on a mailing list. We were both utterly infatuated with each other. We made plans and discussed everything back and forth.. we sent each other video of ourselves talking to the other (this is before we had any webcams) so we could get the feel of what the other person was like IRL, body language etc.. We exchanged over 12,000 emails and at one point had an 8 hour phone call. Eventually we met (we lived in different countries) and spent 9 days together. The online disagreements we had occasionally had disappeared completely IRL. That was 10 years ago, we have now been married for 7 years.

And yet people still say to me, "oh you can't fall in love with someone until you know them in the flesh". Totally not true.

 

[trekkerguy]

As I mentioned in other topics, I did and it lasted a year and a half.

It's very possible and in this day and age should be perfectly acceptable as long as you figure out how to make things work.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

And yet people still say to me, "oh you can't fall in love with someone until you know them in the flesh". Totally not true.

Then I ask again: doesn't that mean that it's possible to fall in love with a fictional character?

 

[BlobVanDam]

I can't believe that in 2011 some people can still have the "online people aren't real people" mentality. You can chat with them through text (much better than through texting on a phone), and you can even talk to them over webcam chats, you can send them photos and videos, and sometimes talking through text online even makes it easier to open up to someone more so than in real life.
I chat to people every single day that I haven't talked to face to face in several years, and you'd easily forget that fact. It's all communication.

How that is in any way comparable to a fictional character who doesn't even exist, I have no idea.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

And yet people still say to me, "oh you can't fall in love with someone until you know them in the flesh". Totally not true.

Then I ask again: doesn't that mean that it's possible to fall in love with a fictional character?

I did not fall in love from afar, I fell in love in response to conversations I had directly with the other person.

Yes it is possible to experience the chemical high your brain produces when infatuated just by "falling" for a fictional character. Some people experience these endorphin releases quite easily and other people love a real life person and never quite get there. The actually feelings and brain chem involved are quite different than an actual meaningful in-love relationship which is what the OP is inquiring about.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

And yet people still say to me, "oh you can't fall in love with someone until you know them in the flesh". Totally not true.

Then I ask again: doesn't that mean that it's possible to fall in love with a fictional character?

Is it possible to fall in love with a fictional character? Yes. It is also possible to fall in love with a Real Doll or a celebrity you have never met, but I don't see that as being really comparable to a modern online relationship as BlobVan Dam pointed out. Besides it is just as easy to fool someone in real life as it is online. You have never had one impression of someone when you first got to know them only to find out down the line it was all an act?

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Is it possible to fall in love with a fictional character? Yes. It is also possible to fall in love with a Real Doll or a celebrity you have never met

Is it possible, really? Love is just a form of self-deception?

Besides it is just as easy to fool someone in real life as it is online. You have never had one impression of someone when you first got to know them only to find out down the line it was all an act?

I'm not talking about the potential to be duped. Deception can exist everywhere, in any kind of relationship. I'm arguing that a relationship arising between two flesh-and-blood people sharing the same space, breathing the same air, exchanging all kinds of non-verbal signals and being attracted intellectually, emotionally, physically, instinctively, spiritually to each other, is fundamentaly different from a relationship built on two people exchanging e-mails and finding out that they enjoy the same kind of movies.

 

[Kestra]

I don't believe you have to share the same physical space or breathe the same air to fall in love. Online relationships can be about much more than sharing interests on superficial topics.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I don't believe you have to share the same physical space or breathe the same air to fall in love. Online relationships can be about much more than sharing interests on superficial topics.

In my opinion, trying to separate our consciousness from our body and our senses is not only futile, it's also potentially dangerous.

 

[RJDiogenes]

It's very possible for two people to be in love and find that their lives are not compatible, whether they meet on the Internet or not.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

It's very possible for two people to be in love and find that their lives are not compatible, whether they meet on the Internet or not.

That's true but it's a completely different debate.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It's very possible for two people to be in love and find that their lives are not compatible, whether they meet on the Internet or not.

That's true but it's a completely different debate.

So is your question about falling in love with fictional characters.