VIRTUALLY YOURS
Internet dating? How likely do you think it is to meet someone on a social media site and develop a ‘real’ and lasting relationship with a virtual stranger? I was curious about this subject, especially since I ended an unhappy twenty year relationship a few months earlier, and came out of it feeling ugly, rejected, and unworthy of ever finding ‘real’ love again. An online relationship sounded appealing to me because I believed it required nothing more than sitting at home writing silly and flirting messages back and forth to some other lonely soul—stress-free, easy, and no strings attached—it would be perfect. I could picture myself sitting in my pjs, drinking wine and chatting endlessly with some fantasy man who had no idea how I looked or sounded or anything else about me that I didn’t want him to know, because on the Internet you can be anyone you want to be, right? Wow. I was beyond naïve about how this whole Internet dating thing works.
In researching this subject I have had my eyes opened to an entire world I never knew existed. There are endless sources to go to if you are looking to meet someone online, and I’m not talking about the obvious sites such as Match.com or eHarmony.com. Those are sites you join with the hopes of actually ‘meeting’ someone to date or even marry. But, what if you are just looking to have a casual Internet fling with no chance of any future obligation?
What if you unexpectedly fall in love with someone online?
My favorite social networking site, Facebook, is where I focused my quest to learn more about this subject. I quickly discovered numerous places—most of them private pages you must request to join—where people are invited to post pictures of themselves. Although most of these pages have disclaimers that they are not dating sites, it is clearly obvious that most of the members on these pages are there to ‘hook up’ with someone online. Many of the pictures include suggestive comments like, “Send me a friend request…I’m single,” or “Want to be friends and maybe more?” It’s fairly obvious what is being suggested.
My curiosity led me in two directions. I befriended a couple of the men in these groups after having friendly banter with them on the group pages. I also became friends with several of the women who belonged to these groups, and through them, I was also told to get in touch with other women who had been involved in online relationships. Between my own brief experience and the experiences of the other women I talked to about this subject, the following is my own personal conclusion about finding love, friendship, or merely companionship online.
It’s my opinion that all of us joined these private pages with the hopes of making some sort of connection with the opposite sex…whether romantic or just to make friends. It’s easy enough to find plenty of casual friendships where you might send a few private messages to get to know one another, and comment on one another’s personal pages as you would any other Facebook friend. But, to my surprise, it is also amazingly easy to find hardcore porn on Facebook if that is what you are looking for. I’ve been told sites like Tumblr are even more graphic, but I was too scared to go there for further research. And, when online, you can never forget that there are some serious weirdos lurking around, so safety must always be foremost when you are putting yourself out there in the cyber world.
A ‘real’ relationship, however, is not so easy to find online if you discover you want more than porn or just basic friendship. Falling in love, even on a social media site such as Facebook can be as beautiful and special as falling in love with the guy next door. The thrill of getting to know one another and discovering that you have so much in common can be much the same online as it is in ‘real’ life. It appears that once an online relationship reaches the point of developing emotional needs for both parties involved, the idea of actually seeing and hearing that other special person far outweighs the insecurities that first entice people to seek out the obscurity of having a social life on the Internet. If it’s a ‘real’ connection of two hearts, there are ways to communicate far beyond Facebook messaging, such as Skype, video chat and the old standby…the telephone. But, as exciting as it can be, what if the online lovers are across the country from one another, or even oceans apart? What if there is no way to ever have anything more than just an online relationship with that special person?
Falling in love with someone in a faraway or exotic locale can be a very lonely venture. Everyone has busy lives outside of the time they spend on the computer. So, waiting for hours on end for the other person to come online, and always wondering if what they have told you about their ‘real’ life is the actual truth, can make a normally reasonable person very insecure and paranoid. One thing for certain, if your online love interest doesn’t want you commenting on their posts on their personal page, you can rest assured it’s because they have not been honest, and a ‘real’ significant other is in the picture.
Then, there is the issue of never being able to actually touch the person you believe you are so head-over-heels in love with, and not ever touching the person you love is huge as far as I’m concerned. How can you have a ‘real’ relationship if there is no hope of ever holding hands, or kissing, not to mention not being able to have a physical love affair? Still, in spite of not having any physical contact with your online lover, all the other intense emotions involved in close relationships come into play, such as jealousy, possessiveness and the need for reassurance that you are, indeed, loved and desired. It was amazing to me to learn about how all of these profound feelings surface even though the person you are feeling them for is someone you have never met, or even touched, and basically know nothing about other than whatever they have told you about themselves online.
Now, I’m coming to the part that is probably going to make me very unpopular with the male gender. But, of all the online relationships I researched, almost all of them, except for one, has ended in heartbreak for the women, because the men involved had to be with a ‘real’ woman regardless of the emotional bond they had with their online love. This is not to say that there are not women who also have the need to have ‘real’ contact with another man, but among the women I spoke to about this subject all but one of them had their cyber men lose interest in the online affair and move on to be with ‘real’ women. Although, I believe this is completely understandable, because we all crave ‘real’ intimacy in our lives, the rejection from their online lovers was as devastating for these women as it would have been if they were having a ‘real’ love affair and they had been dumped for another woman who lived down the street.
So, what about that one couple I mentioned above who met online and weren’t affected by infidelity? Although they lived thousands of miles apart when they met on a social media site, they have traveled across the country to meet one another, and have discovered they are as much in love in person as they were online. They are trying to figure out a way to eventually be together for ‘real’. If things work out as they hope, this couple will be a rare exception to the normal outcome of online relationships.
My personal belief is that it’s possible to meet your soul mate online, and if it is meant to be, then you will find a way to make it ‘real’. But, the odds of that happening are slim-to-none, and the reality of getting your heart broken is so much higher. For me, the jury is still out on whether or not it is worth the risk. I do not want to prowl the local bars and single hangouts looking for male companionship in my small town. And, the hopeless romantic in me sometimes imagines that there is a perfect man out there in cyber land that I will connect with on a meaningful and emotional level, and he will come cruising into my ‘real’ life to sweep me off my feet, and we will live happily ever after. But, the realist in me knows this is only a beautiful fairytale.
What do you think? Would you take the chance of trying to find ‘real’ love online? Or, are the odds against it too high to make it worth the time and effort?
