Online dating... is it a real relationship?

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

Okay goodnight Purple,sweet dreams

 

[juggernaut]

I guess someone should go tell Karen and Senshi that what they had all that time was nothing until he decided to just move over here one day, you know... based on nothing after all that time. Pretty gutsy move to just be that delusional and all of a sudden commit to marrying someone after a change of geography.

And if you all want to discuss God, don't waste your breath on Purple. Free will is one of His gifts and she's welcome to her opinion. That's all it is. It's not fact just because she said it or is willing to outlast you in this debate.

But here's the limitation of science: Say we've never been to a certain spot on the ocean floor. All of a sudden one day, they make it down there and discover a 60 year old turtle that has feathers and five eyes. We've obviously never seen that before and now need a way to document or classify it... so we'll just make up a name for it [and a species, genus... whatever it takes] just so we can identify it and add it to our knowledge base of other things we've learned along the way. According to Purple's/science's need for facts and proof before believing anything... that turtle didn't exist before they literally laid eyes on it. But now that they've seen it and can prove it... viola. Instantaneous viability. Yet all anyone did was stumble across it and come to realize it's existence. It'd been alive for 60 years whether science got a look at it or not. And that, my God fearing/atheist friends, is the real truth. Some things are true whether you believe them or not.

I've read pretty much every thread where someone wants to flex their college astronomy book or explain their firm grasp of God's mind because they had 4 years of Sunday school as a kid. We get it. You don't want to believe. No problem. Yet the discussions bloom and links are shared about places in the universe that are billions of light years away. Go ahead and post those pics. Let's see all the proof of what we know about anything beyond... oh, I don't know... Mars? Don't we lose contact with just about everything we send there... the planet right beside us? After all this time, we're now pretty sure it's possible there could be water there. Or maybe there once was. We don't have a cup of it, so I'm gonna reserve judgement. And to theorize about what's going on in galaxies so far away none of us would live to reach one if we shot right out of our mom's vag in a space cone and traveled uninterrupted at twice the speed of light for 100 years is pretty arrogant.

I'm all for science in the place it belongs and that's as a man-made system of categorizing and playing with things that already exist. It's very useful, but it creates nothing.

And back on topic, I obviously think you're all splitting hairs. Communicating your feelings and interacting here is a type of relationship, but it's not technically dating. Dating is a social engagement and a physical act. I don't live anywhere near my mother anymore, either, but I have a relationship with her.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Okay. Way to attack me after I've said I'm done. You want some? You got some.

Science creates nothing, eh?

I guess someone should go tell Nerrad that computer he's using to browse the internet and facilitate light-speed communication (I suppose ranting about science not having a place in conversation passes for communication) he learned from a classroom - all don't exist.

Please let me know when he finds that turtle with feathers and five eyes.

FYI, there is water ice on mars. And on several moons orbiting the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. In fact, Titan has it's own weather with rain. It also contains many lakes. However, specifically on Titan it's rich in methane, so it wouldn't be safe for us in any sense. Titan is actually quite reminiscent of pre-biotic conditions of Earth before the cambrian explosion.

Limitations of science; putting probes on moons that orbit massive gravity wells billions of miles away?

I suppose Voyager II passing the termination shock of the solar system (which is roughly twice the distance of Pluto from the sun; roughly 7 billion kilometers during its Aphelion) was a limitation of science too? XD

I know how much you disdain pictures like this, but I sincerely hope you click this one. It might give you a little perspective. It actually isn't a distant, far-away planet. It's Earth, snapped from about 3.7 billion miles away. The Pale Blue Dot that we all live on, as we toil endlessly about our petty arguments about what is and what is not, and internet dating. It's all pointless from this vantage point, so please don't be upset that the topic has derailed so far off it's tracks. Now I'm done.

 

[CrazyLikeAFox]

Nerrad, may I kiss you? :wub

 

[melanie2]

Nerrad, may I kiss you? :wub

stand in line....me first dibs on nerrad...:stickout

 

[Budweiserbob!]

Y'see, I've thought a lot about this too because I know quite a few people in online relationships. The verdict I came up with is: It's not a real/true relationship. At most, I can see it as a "pretend" relationship, nothing more than people playing the roles of a girlfriend/boyfriend. As everyone has stated, you need to atleast meet this person for it to become a true relationship. Why? So that you can confirm that the feelings you feel for this person when speaking to them through some medium such as an IM service are the same as if you met them in real life. Once this has been achieved, your relationship bumps up from an online/pretend relationship to a "Long Distance" Relationship, an accepted type of relationship. So if you haven't made plans to meet atleast once in that same year, then you have nothing more than a fake relationship.

So why can't permanent online relationships be real/true?

Simple. You're missing out or throwing away one of two very important sides to a relationship. The physical side. No matter how hard you try with your online cyber sex, no matter how much time and effort you put into writing messages to one another and no matter how well you think it's fulfilling those needs, you cannot satisfy those physical needs in an online relationship. Those of us who are lucky enough to have experienced sex can guarantee you that any experience you have in online cyber is nothing compared to the real thing. The true bonds of love are made through experiences you have together. Walking through a park while holding hands, snuggling on a warm couch while watching a movie, your first kiss, your first time. Without these experiences, you have nothing more than a bond as strong as a wet sheet of one ply toilet paper, capable of breaking at any given moment.

There is also another element that you can't guarantee in online relationships. Trust. How trustworthy can a person be in an online relationship? What's stopping them from having several online relationships? How do you know they are who they say they are? There's no way you can truly know. The thing is, with online relationships, it is possible to maintain several of them at one time. It's just a case of having multiple IM'ing windows open at once. Juggling them becomes far more simple. So when you think you're that person's one and only special person, you may just be one of his many thrills.

There are two prime examples that I have which all of you may/should know about, and I think they justify what I mean well. My apologies for those I mention, but it's for the sake of conversation.

EDIT: Removed the examples as it was unfair on some people. [BudweiserBob!]

So to sum up:

No, you can't be in a true relationship if you keep the relationship online. You just can't. Whatever feelings you are experience evolve nowhere beyond affection and infatuation. Nothing more.

 

[tickle_fan031]

If the people are not going to meet at some point then I do not think that an online relationship is real. Like others have said, those that are in them will swear that they are real- but hey whatever floats your boat. Good luck to them. But they are missing out on so much. But I understand why people like the idea, especially if they struggle to find that special someone in their own area. It could be a good way to practice at relationships to try and get ideas for when it happens in real life...just like cybertickling...you set scenes and imagine what it might be like or how you might react. At the end of the day you are just communicating with people, either verbally (i.e. if telephone conversations take place etc) or in written form (i.e e-mails, instant messages etc). Apart from missing out on the biggy- physical interaction- you are missing out on the non-verbal cues of communication. Things that we do automatically that we don't realise we are doing or if we can't find the right way to say something. Like someone said, I would rather see those non verbal cues at some point down the line rather than reading, person x *blushes* etc.
I have to agree with what Bob has said- trust is a major thing- you have no idea who you are really talking to-plus you have no idea whether the other person involved is true to their word....it can be so easy to type "i love you" than to say it outloud face to face with the person with all of your emotions running high. Also things can be exaggerated online....it can become too much of a fantasy therefore not real.
Karen and Senshi made it work- people have to meet and have the physical contact for it to be real. Looking back I remember thinking that it would be hard for them to have such a long distance relationship- but I guess because they spent so much time communicating with each other online when it came to meeting a few times they then knew it was real love. In one sense having the online relationship kinda saved time....they didn't have to meet/go out loads of time before they knew they belonged together.
Online relationships are a good stepping stone- a stepping stone from the fantasy world into real life.
I personally wouldn't have an online relationship if there was no possibility of meeting the other person in the future. But like I have said, whatever floats your boat. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[Big_Dogg85]

But like I have said, whatever floats your boat. Different strokes for different folks.

Amen!

 

[kopfhorer1]

I was on another forum, and while the people on it were certainly nice, they didn't become real for me until I met them at a meetup.

And if two people living a considerable distance apart have an online relationship but meet each other in real life at least some of the time, then whatcha got is a classic long-distance relationship, right? In the not-very-distant past, people in LDR's communicated via plain, old-fashioned postal letters (a lost art) and long-distance phone calls. Same deal!