Online dating... is it a real relationship?

[chicag0]

I say no. And since I don't know how to make a poll on this website, what do you all think?

 

[juggernaut]

If you ask the people doing it... yes. Myself, it woulda never worked for me. There's a lack of intimacy. I say no, too.

 

[chicag0]

If you ask the people doing it... yes. Myself, it woulda never worked for me. There's a lack of intimacy. I say no, too.

Yeah, the people involved would definitely say yes. Though, the lack of intimacy, and the lack of ever really knowing if they are who they say they are or are the person in the picture they pass off as themselves, also makes me say 'no.'

 

[melanie2]

hm if you mean will they eventually meet i say yes..as it happened to my very best friend..and they have been married now for ten or so years..so it's a real relationship for some..she met her future husband online..

 

[juggernaut]

I understand being intrigued or stimulated by people online, but you can't smell them. You don't feel the warmth or smoothness of their skin. There's a whole dimension of a relationship that'd be absent for me. I tried to date a girl who was simply out of state away at college and it didn't last 6 months. She came home once a month to see me, but it didn't work. I wanna hear someone laugh, not read "LOL". I'd rather squeeze them on the cheek than type a smiley face to them.

I know there are people everywhere doing it, but I don't see how it could be equal or close to being together.

 

[melanie2]

well right..i'm not for online dating if they aren't EVENTUALLY going to meet..

 

[AiritheDestoyer]

Well, I myself, am in my second online relationship. The first one lasted for two and a half years and we saw each other.

I'm currently dating Blue Mage... going on... five months the 28th. I am very happy with him. I do wish we could actually be together, but that just cant happen right now no matter how much I want it to.

Relationships arent just about the physical intimacy, but there's also the mental intimacy which I think is far more important than the physical.

Thats just one opinion of someone in a online relationship.

But really, who says you can only find love in your area? The internet has surely come to greater uses.

And don't any of you know that people from TT themselves currently in relationships that stare arted over the internet, but they have had the great opertunity to meet face to face.

Trey and I will have our time.

 

[Violetta]

Having had a couple of online flings in my time, and having had the real deal, I can't say that an online relationship is at all real. As stated earlier, the people in them will swear they're as real as anything, but I just don't buy into 'em. If someone's a collection of text or a digital sound file then they're obviously not real.

 

[Big_Dogg85]

Real or not real is in the eye of the beholder... what's real to Sam is quite possibly different to what is real to Jess and/or Trey, for example. If the two people in the online relationship decide that what they have is real to them then it is a real relationship: who are we to say it's not when to them it is?

Annie: if you think an online relationship is not real than it is not real to you and that's all that matters, right? If you ask me, I don't base relationships solely in terms of actual, physical proximity or intimacy: if it works and the two in the relationship enjoy it then that's all there is to it.

 

[kopfhorer1]

I think that online dating is useful as a tool for meeting new prospective friends/lovers/spouses. The embarrassment and frustration of chatting up someone you're attracted to only to find out that they're already spoken for is all but eliminated (dishonest web-daters notwithstanding). Nothing wrong with being chat-pals, if that's whatcha want. It seems though that most people on the few dating sites I've checked out, including yours truly, are looking for something a bit more real-world-oriented.

My biggest gripe about online dating is that the stakes are much higher than they need to be. If you make a less-than-perfect impression with someone you meet in a real-life situation where you might meet them again, you might have another chance with them. With online dating, if your first face-to-face isn't perfect, you might never see that particular date ever again. If your initial online message displeases a prospect that you haven't yet met , he or she might permanently block you. And many apparently promising online exchanges terminate in midstream for no apparent reason, leaving one to wonder what if anything one has done wrong.

In short, online dating seems to be a lot a lot more about marketing than "the market".

(I've also been told that the people on free sites like OK Cupid are meaner than the ones on Yahoo, Lavalife, etc., but I'll take that blanket generalization with the appropriate dose of salt).

 

[juggernaut]

I don't consider myself in a relationship with anyone in the TT, yet I do just as much here as any other two online members in a relationship can do: type and respond. Post a pic if I want.

But, hey... to each their own.

I don't think it matters what you want, it's what you get. Ask Norm if he's cool being a satellite away from Bug or if it's just as good this way. Will it work out? Who knows. If they want it to, I hope it does. Regardless, I personally think it'd be more fulfilling to be in each others' presence and would be shocked if I was told otherwise.

 

[Coda1]

There's no hard-and-fast definition of what a relationship is.

I think in the most general sense, it's a two-person, affection-based setup with at least a couple of explicitly-stated (or sometimes merely inferred, more tragically) rules of the participants' choice.

I would definitely qualify online dating as a "relationship" in that sense.

 

[JackVanderson]

Having had a couple of online flings in my time, and having had the real deal, I can't say that an online relationship is at all real. As stated earlier, the people in them will swear they're as real as anything, but I just don't buy into 'em. If someone's a collection of text or a digital sound file then they're obviously not real.

I'm real. I know I am. Saying that a person that's online isn't real is quite an insult considering just how many of us here are in online relationships. Yes, congrats again for being in a relationship irl but some of us just didn't get the luxury of having the other person be near us. Not only that but if the two people meet and then they stay together, is that not real? What about situations like Senshi and Karen? I might be in an online relationship, but it's been more real then any friendship I've made over the last few years, and that's because it doesn't matter if the relationship is online or in person, it comes down to what type of person you've made the relationship with.

 

[melanie2]

my best friend is Embraceabl...we have never met..we talk all the time..either by phone or yahoo...she is real...i am real....just because we have never met does not make our feelings for each other any less..we plan to try and meet sometime..she is the best thing that has ever happened to me..she loves me unconditionally...can everyone say that about best friends that they have met in the flesh?

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

Umm it's complicated Roxy and I love each other very much and all but all in all,I don't know it's really complicated.There's so much difference between the two relationships that comparing them together is really hard.It's a whole different world.

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

the hollywood brother thinks it can be real since you are getting emotionally attached to the person. once you surrender your heart then the hollywood brother thinks that you is in a relationship whether there is hot hollywood brother tickling action or not.

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

It's just a lot of times you will never see that person in real life and that is hard to deal with.

 

[juggernaut]

The question was about online dating, not having online friends. We all have friends online.

It's not a bad thing to have a commitment to someone online. But say you meet someone here... you communicate online for a year and decide to see someone else or break it off. Would you tell your friends "I dated someone for a year" even though you never even met them? Never had a meal together? Kissed? Went to a movie? I think that's stretching the definition of dating.

And this isn't an evaluation of someone's feelings, so if you're in an online relationship, don't take it personal. I'm sure the feelings are real. But I'd stop short of calling it dating and say you have commitments to one another.

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

well it is a real relationship and the feelings are definitely there and they are real it just has its differences from an offline relationship and you may meet each other one day.It's basically the same thing as a long distance relationship

 

[chicag0]

Dating online with the idea that the two will actually meet and form a relationship in real life is one thing. I've met a few of my past boyfriends on the web. I get it. But what I don't get is when people live out their entire 'relationship' online. No face to face contact, no webcams, no mics, no phone calls, no visits. Just instant messages, emails, and cybering. To me, that's about as real as a video game.

 

[melanie2]

also with no visual or vocal connection..how can you be sure they are the gender they represent?

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

the emotions are still there,the love is real.Sometimes it is impossible to meet that person but you still love them.You have to remember love knows no bounds and it can make a person be able to do and handle crazy things

 

[chicag0]

the emotions are still there,the love is real.Sometimes it is impossible to meet that person but you still love them.You have to remember love knows no bounds and it can make a person be able to do and handle crazy things

When people say they "love" someone they've never seen, met, or heard, I doubt it's real love. They are misconstruing lack of attention and connection with love and filling in the gaps with what they want, wish, or hope to be true. It's an illusion. Again, like a video game.

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

no not necessarily.Love is a strange thing and it can work in mysterious ways.You really can't understand it until you've been there

 

[chicag0]

I have been there a couple times and had to find out the hard way, realizing that I was making mistakes each time. Now, I understand love, sure, but in this case it would be love of an illusion, not a person.