Long Distance/Online Dating...

I guess sex is safer... XD.

Sorry, I have no real input for this thread... I am just bored

 

I think for some people they turn out really well. Othertimes not so well... Of course there's nothing wrong with just chatting with someone, but if you are planning to meet them, make sure you can really trust the person, and make sure you meet in a public area where there are lots of people around.

 

When this first became an issue (i.e. when the Internet got popular), I initially thought online relationships were completely and totally bogus. The moral of the story is don't be too quick to dismiss anything--in my experience, you can get bitten really badly on the ass by the thing you dismissed. *grin*

I guess I haven't officially had any online relationships but there are two somewhat weird situations that began online that had a huge impact on my life. The first was falling for someone online who I was scheduled to meet. That turned out QUITE badly because he cancelled his trip at the last minute and that was basically that. It turns out it was basically all his issues and not mine but it sure didn't ease the pain. But the frightening/strange/somewhat wondrous thing was that I think with him that was the most intensely I've ever felt about someone, ever, which sounds really weird if you consider I had never met him (I did later on but the circumstances were pretty different). And I wouldn't say my feelings for him were the deepest but that relatively short period was somehow the most... concentrated amount of feeling I've ever had for someone... ever, I think.

The second instance of online relationship-like stuff that happened was me and this guy kinda... well, it's hard to explain. I guess ultimately we became really good friends but it was definitely a weird situation because we were both kinda afraid to meet one another. But it was more than friends... to tell you the truth, it kinda feels like it was more than we were lovers. Not really soulmates but more like--he needed me to see him the way I saw him, and I needed him to need me and appreciate that of all the people in his life, I was the only one who saw the whole him. It was like... I needed to believe he was more than he appeared and he needed my belief. It's kinda a difficult thing to sum up without spending hours relating the story, and the story doesn't do the experience justice.

But yeah, those were relationships that were significantly online or started online.

I don't actually think you can have a long distance or online relationship without having met the person face-to-face at some relatively early point in the relationship. And I think it's difficult to carry on any kind of significant long distance relationship unless you've really managed to build something significant face-to-face first. That's just me, of course, and I have specific ways of relating to people, plus there's the fact that in a relationship, sex is a big thing to me, and so not having that as a major component of a relationship would be a real deal-breaker for me.

That being said, my most significant boyfriend relationship was with someone who lived 4 hours away and we dated for 2 years. But he was a student so his schedule was flexible enough that we could get together probably... twice a month? Sometimes more... and we're both pretty independent people, so ultimately I think the distance probably helped keep us together maybe longer than if we had lived in the same city. We'll never know for sure...

For me the key is to keep in touch, so I was on the phone and emailing constantly with this guy. What I missed most was just being able to casually see him as opposed to always having to plan things all the time. I don't think it's possible to underestimate the importance of proximity when you're in a relationship. I'm pretty sure successful long distance relationships are relatively rare over any kind of sustained period unless both people are just very committed to one another.

That's my 2 cents...

 

Hmm....

I would just say to be cautious about online dating. Besides meeting in a public place, etc, I'm talking about not getting your hopes up - people are different from their online personalities. For example, I'm way more of a jackass online than I am in person. :smilewave

 

I agree with you, online personalities are nothing like face to face. I, on the contrary, am more of a jackass in person than online... so go figure

 

You know, I've had one online relationship in my short life, and it was an amazing ride that I would never trade in.

It started, of course, on a message board, a topic about politics. We had extremely similar ideas and he contacted me through AIM. We talked, for hours and we had the same views about religion, politics, family, morals... music, nearly everything. We were actually a really good match.

Eventually, he talked to me about online dating... right then I had never really thought about it, but he said he was interested. At the time I was deep in the closet and younger, so I said it "wasn't my cup of tea." Through talking, we discovered we lived only about 50 miles from each other.

We met at a Dairy Queen... he was 18 and gorgeous... he knew me by my red shirt and I knew him by checkered shoes. IT's silly I still know that! We ended up just talking, and after that I really fell out of the internet... my real life got a lot more important.

Never saw him again, kind of sad. I guess looking back on it, it was weird that a fourteen year old met someone from online in real life... the mind of a child, I guess....

I think part of the lure of an online relationship is the person likes you for you... they don't see your face and they're forced to like you for your inner beauty. It's something all of us want.

 

well i had a long distance relationship that lastest 4 a year...

bt no way would i date an online person coz all we know that person could b a fat old man possing as a 22 year old person that i find attractive

 

It really depends on the people. I have a friend who been dating his boyfriend for 1.5 years & they just met face to face recently.

But be careful, not only for your physical safety but emotionally too. I developed a bad crush (& still do) on the friend mentioned above. He didn't feel the same way & it really hurt me (& still does), but I don't want to lose him as a friend so I try to ignore the feelings. It's hard.

 

One thing that would sort of make online relationships difficult is communication. It's hard to convey your emotions through text messaging. Or showing your true personality. You'd have to likely use webcams and microphones to be perfectly clear, it's easy to accidentally confuse or give a mixed message using only text. It's not impossible, just really hard. From what I've seen, most online and long distance relationships tend to work out more if their distance is some sort of temporary one, and they do in fact have intention of actually seeing eachother.