Online Relationships

Most of these replies have been cynical, people! Most dating couples now meet online and its becoming a normal and fine way to meet a potential partner. What is better, a bar? It has its up sides and down, just like any other.

The UP SIDE is that it forces you to actually interact on an intellectual level with the other person. It isn't just physical stuff or chemistry. You get to actually know the person and how they think. That makes intimacy effortless. You discover so much about a person by the dialogue created so much faster than you would if you had date after date after date. In real life (IRL) face to face dates get physical chemistry in the way and distract from the "get to know you" process and make it harder to really know your common interests and thought process. I think that forced distance of online can forge a very powerful bond with another person, but one that has its definite disadvantages.

The DOWN SIDE is that it can foster TOO much intimacy to quickly. You are skipping the natural spacing of the "get to know you" process and it puts you on a fast track that is hard to pace. Pacing a relationship is critical for developing trust. There is no real relationship without trust. Trust and confidence in the other person's representations is critical or else you will second guess whether your feelings are real, the other person's feelings are real, or whether you can rely on what they tell you about who they are or their life. That is really destabilizing to a potentially good relationship. Its a form of dating paranoia that is not really experienced in IRL dating or are at least toned down by re-enforcement from being physically with the person.

AT PRESENT: I am in a quasi-long distance relationship now. It started online, but we moved to phone very quickly. The cloak of the internet allowed him to start off in a way I know he never would have approached me in real life- by saying something racy and sexist. I would never have given him the time of day in person, but the internet allowed me to ignore him until I got bored and then bothered to read his profile and discovered we had a passion of mine in common. It superseded his idiot comment in my mind. Rather than delete his comment or write a scathing retort, I chose to ignore how he opened up our dialogue and countered with a question on our common interest. From there we hit it off with a bang. He immediately apologized for the douchey thing he said and I chose to wave it aside. I have not regretted it once. Its been 4 months and I travel to see him and he travels to see me (we're 3000 miles apart). We talk on the phone everyday (unless his work or mine overwhelms us). I'm relationship adverse, so I get scared with how close I feel to him and concerned about how he feels about me. I can't help it, I'm neurotic that way where men are concerned. When we are together it all goes away and I'm confident in things again. There is a definite potential for us to be permanent and I have to let the relationship unfold naturally. If it breaks under the strain of distance, there isn't much I can do about it. I'm glad I am giving it a shot. I've made horrible choices in potential mates in person and locally without a computer in sight. Mostly because I made assumptions about who the person is or only went for them for their looks. I say, if you feel good about it and potential exists in both your minds- go for it. What are you going to lose?

I met my wife online, but not on a dating site. We were several countries apart

Online relationships aren't bad at all. However I suggest to take their time when you meet someone that sparkles your interest. I suggest to start with a friendship where you and the other person can be a bit more open to get to know each other. (Going straight to a relationship is not always a good idea). as the friendship builds up, if you feel you want to get closer with that person you can start with pictures or video chats and slowly build the relationship.

I was with my wife online for 4 years until I finally saved up to move with her and get married. We've been happy ever since

Lemme guess: Cali and the east coast?

They say nowadays 1 in 4 relationships start online. I actually met my husband via an 'adult' website! lol

We started chatting online, then the usual texts, calls, and camming. Finally we met up and started spending weekends together and he finally moved 70 miles to live me. That was 7 years ago and we have kids now too.

Before that I had some brief 'relationships'. Mostly it was just guys wanting to cam and werent really interested in any form of decent relationship.

As long as there are laughter and tears involve it's a relationship based on feelings. It's part of a relationship, and personally I think online relationship is a great thing.

Nope. Oregon and North Dakota ;) Distance is not our biggest divide, either, as we're opposites politically, socially, and racially as well. Guess we prefer tsundere vanilla. Lol.

as a person who has dealt with two long distance relationships, i can say that you either get really lucky or they go to shit. which in my case always fall in the second ending.
i used to sext a lot with them, send nudes. honestly it just depends on what the both of you are comfortable with, that's the most important thing

QFT

Pretty much my one experience with online/long distance, along with the wisdom that I gained and learned from it. As someone mentioned earlier, be casual and treat it as a standard LDR. If you click well, you'll naturally get closer and have a better idea of what each of you want from the relationship. In my experience, I thought of the man as a close friend I could call for an evening chat; a little teasing and flirting; late night revelations. Good times. But a real relationship is more substantial than a culmination of conversations and innuendos. I was head over heels for a couple of years, but I had enough sense to acknowledge that I wanted and craved something more physical. Sadly, a visit never came through. I got caught up in my everyday business, as did he. On the bright side, we never really had any closure and I got back in touch, so at the very least I have a good friend back. Seeing each other in person? Maybe. Who knows.

tl;dr: A good long distance relationship can be satisfying, but don't expect anything serious to come out of it unless it's highly feasible to visit one another in person. It's not wholesome otherwise.

Join the party: majority of relationships that stay online end up in the gutter eventually.

Also, see this post.

only thing i'll say is don't make promises you can't keep. long relationship seems very hard and takes a lot of patience. online relationships aren't my thing at least i think, not sure. well i live in the US, so if she lives in my area or close state i would consider the possibility's.

If I'm ever going too do Online Relationship we should at least be in contact for 2 years, know each other really well, feel comfortable with each other. Basically we are like best friends.

What I will not consider is anything to do with Intimate things, you know what I mean by that.

Never dated before nor done online dating*

Yes, I've met a certain someone on DeviantART by the name of trilljacker6534, who's from the US, while I'm from the Philippines.

It's been months since I've known him, and I just want to keep in touch with him through both DA Chat, Skype, and the occasional Facebook. Sometimes, the RP sex helps, and don't get me started on seeing his face and hearing his voice in Webcam Mode.

I'm currently in an online relationship. Me and my boyfriend started to get to know each other for a year, then met each other irl. He lives in USA, while I live in Norway. We're still in a relationship and it's been almost 4 years now. We try to visit each other every year once each (me visiting him during winter, while he is visiting me during summer) and it working just fine so far.
We would have moved in together earlier, but we both have our studies to take care of first. :P

Well, I'd say that online relationships really depends on the people.
If one is patient, and you feel that you'd be able to wait some years in order to be with the one you love, and likewise from you partner's view, then go for it.
Try visit each other though, and keep contact a lot at least. It's both to improve the relationship with some physical contact, and to get to know the person better when they're not behind the screen.

A lot of relationships; both online ones and irl ones tend to end quickly, but if you met the right type of person, it will most likely last longer than other ones.

I will say that both close distance and online relationships have their own pros and cons. If it's the right person, nothing would really stop you from being together in the end. I guess its just the matter of taking the right steps.

But coming from me, it might not mean much... I haven't really been in a true relationship, I've only just observed and read about them...

I guess I might have sorta been in one online, but... I think I might have done something wrong because she's basically isolated herself from me. Assuming she didn't lie about anything she told me about herself, we pretty much think almost identical. So... I have no idea what happened in the end...

Numerous online relationships that have been a lot of fun. I think the reason for that is I've always kept them lighthearted and grounded in the fun, sexy goofing off. No strings and all. Have contact with lots of them still even if they've drifted off, no hard feelings and lots of good memories.

My ethos with online interactions is that they tend to work best for me when grounded from the beginning in a take it or leave it attitude. If that's not for the other person.. That's fine! But I'm a 'does what it says on the tin' kind of guy. You get a good time, positive attitude and dirty point of view with me. That's about it. :)

I had an online relationship that lasted three years. Its tough when you can't be with the person you care about in person but its something you have to be emotionally prepared for. Online relationships are not impossible but they can be difficult to manage but depending on the people involved, it is possible to make it work if you can close the gap.

And that's the tough part. It could be anything that causes problems, like other people, or distance, or emotions.

I guess that would apply to closer relationships as well, but online ones seems to be more sensitive to problems.

I'd love to hang out with the few friends I do have, but not being able to be physically there always sucks.

Edit: entire thing, I was pretty drunk last night. My bad.

I've seen it work many times in the past, a couple of my online friends started out playing Aion together, and it began when he decided to visit her (from texas, she's in toronto). They had a lot of fun and decided it was worth investing time into, and on the last day he said something like, "I don't really want to leave you behind." and has been living with her ever since, that's been I think 4-5 years ago? They play games, go to the gym together, couple stuff. etc.

I think that the trick is to find a partner that isn't just your girl/boyfriend, but your best friend as well.

You have to somehow make up for the distance, I don't really want to make it seem like you're weighing the scale here, but it is sort of like that in the end. Is it worth being in a distance relationship? Am I having enough fun to counterbalance being alone when I'm out sometimes?

My personal experiece has been a bit weird, I've had a relationship with a girl all the way in Bulgaria, and we had fun for about two months, before we decided it wasn't working. The most recent was with someone in Toronto, (I'm in Boston), and that had lasted about 7 months. It was great for the first few months, I actually spent money to visit her for a few days, and we had a blast (I like physical contact, just holding hands is enough to slowly bring up my mood). But a fwe months later she didn't see it working, she grew increasingly paranoid of me hceating or not spending enough time with her, and ended up cheating on me a couple times. Couldn't really make amends, because of the distance and school/obligations, so it eventually fell through a few months ago. While it was really upsetting, I don't regret it in the least.

So really, if you're given the option for an online relationships, just ask yourself if you're ready for that kind of relationship where there isn't alot of skinship, and a bit more commitment and a bit less motivation for it to turn out spectacularly. And likewise find out what your partner thinks of the situation as well.

I have been in two online relationships.

The first one: was with someone living in the same country as me, we only lasted 2 month. We would skype and call every night like normal couples but sex wasn't even an option. We tried to met up a lof of times but it never worked out. We didn't live that far from each other, I think it was around 1 hour with public transport probably less in car. But I think just texting and calling wasn't enough for the both of us and life at the time just wasn't meant to be. We only met after we broke up and well I don't know what he is up to anymore. We didn't keep in touch.

The Second one: was with someone in another country. We would usually skype call but I don't feel very comfortable about the thought of someone watching me masturbate so we would usually just talk without webcam. Since we lived in two countries we didn't phone so we always had to match our time because of time difference. We lasted 9 month. In the beginning we could talk about all different kind of things like "how was your day" and such but later we would only chat each other up when one of us was horny and the conversations died too quickly. I guess he got sexually frustrated about not being able to have sex IRL and I just felt very lonely about not being able to cuddle with him and the thought of only a skype conversation/call kept us connected was really hard. We tried to figure out if we could met up IRL but the travel expenses was too expensive. In the end we just broke up. We still talk from time to time but it is just the basic "so how is your life" small talk.

I think it is hard to maintain an online relationship because you haven't met IRL before. I think maintaining a long distance relationship is easier because you have spent time together before and know how each other and how each other behave. While in an online relationship you might be in love with the person on the screen but maybe they are different in real life. Maybe it works for the two of you while calling and skyping but when you finally met up it might be a different story.

Though my advise to keep an online relationship going would be: make sure you talk to each other a lot and talk about different things, don't only limit it to sex and lovey dovey talk. Make sure you share the same feelings and thought about your future. Is the relationship only for now or do you want it to be serious and maybe one day meet up and maybe even move together? What do you both seek from the relationship? Also If possible try to meet up when both of you are more confident. Also accepting is a very important thing in online relationships, since you might not have met the person or the person's friends or family. They might be overwhelming if you didn't expect them to be like you thought. Also if you have culture difference or different traditions. Other than that remember to tell her you love her. (goes for all kind of relationships!!)

I've never had an intimate online relationship (always just dated guys I met through friends or out at places), but this would sum up my feelings perfectly with them. The only other thing I could think to add is that you always want to be careful with the other person you are in the relationship with. Things to watch out for include have you ever seen their face?, how do you know that the person is who they say they are, what are their intentions in relation to you (hook up, friendly, etc), are they willing to make this work. I'm not against online relationships, but I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly (movie reference lol). The best being two getting married and starting a life together, the bad being someone who was actually a sex offender and extorted cash from someone because they took her nude photos and held them for ransome.

Online relations are similar to physical ones in that you need to be honest and take things slow with the other person to get to know them. The difference between the two is you need to have even more communication with the person and keep things very clear between the two parties. It is also good to at least talk about seeing one another (perferably in an open location where one party gets a hotel room in case things don't work out) even if you can't do so right away. Biggest thing is to make sure you look for the "red flags" that I included above, because you never know who could be a catfish.