We meet partners and lovers through all walks of life, pubs, clubs, parties, friends, work, online chat rooms, lonely hearts and other social interests. For most Brits, gone are the days of chaperones and in their place we are much more dependant on our friends for advice and consoltation on prospective lovers and partners. This can be achieved online without and at their leisure as they can reply to your IM when they next log in. Our social worlds are our debutante’s ball. So we really can and do run our social lives online, when it suits us.
The first and foremost worry of anyone when it come to meeting someone from the worldwide web is what if they turn into Sweeney Todd. Get a grip, if at this early point they turn in to a raving loony, as long as you haven’t offered up to much personal information, you’ll be fine. If you have offered up phone numbers, addresses, facebook details - where you have probably catalogued your whole life -… well quite frankly it’s your own bloody fault. Stop being a muppet and take your personal safety seriously.
I see it as really no different from meeting a person you thought was normal at the library and then turns out to be a book-reading bunny boiler. Or if you are a lesser being, you probably met them at the pub when you were scraping the coppers off the sticky floor.. or you were on drugs… in which case you better get to a GUM clinic.
No, the most significant danger of online relationships and internet dating is not that they may lock you up in a dungeon for 25 years (nice reference Tommington). It is that you are defrauding yourself out of any serious and honest relationship by the fabrication in your mind you have built of that person in the absence of their physical presence
You can’t feel the timbre of their voice, the smell of their hand or the soothing protectiveness of their touch. So you embellish. You fantasise. If you don’t keep this in check, you will rush in heads first and as your dopamine levels return to normal, well… actually.. that person isn’t really worth the 8 hour round trips, petrol money and you hard earned free time. But you’ve already proclaimed your love.. and now you look like a tit..don’t you?
Similarly our silly minds are likely to make us walk away from the decent people, have some stupidly dramatic outburst or convince yourself they are leading a double life. Well, if you can’t put the hard work in now, how can you expect anything to last?
Nothing is easy, and internet dating and online relationships are certainly not that. They are designed to hurt, especially when mixed with a LDR.
BUT… and this is a massive BUTT (much like my own)… when it goes right, there is no reason you can’t and won’t meet someone who could be very significant in your life. You just need to know yourself first, to not settle and be prepared to work hard. No relationship is easy and it is only by being tested, that you can be sure the love you have is real. Otherwise it could all be a one-sided affair.
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