Let me say this... Romance.net?

[Liar]

Paraphrasing nikkijame's thread title there, I hope she don't mind. After all, it got me thinking. About love. And keyboards. And other stuff.

During the year that I've been here, I've seen several examples of people finding each other via this place. Some here on the AH others in other areas of the forum. I see people who have just recently arrived here, maybe only a month or two before, have full blown, passionate romances through space and wire.

And I'm equally flabbergasted each time. Pleasantly surprised, yes. Love is grand, and we should sherish it wherever we find it. But I can't figure it out...how can it happen?

What I see here from all of you are just tunnel-visioned snapshots of the real you. There is only a select few of you that I feel that I have a personal connection with, that I really know. And that have taken lots and lots of time.

It's not easy to get under the skin of someone who always has at least a few seconts to figure out how to react to you. Maybe I'm a cynic pariah, or maybe I'm just wired differently than others, but I need to see all the nuances of a face to face conversation, and hear the timbre of a voice to feel that I really get the hang of people.

To connect as intimately as to call it love, and so rapidly over this slow medium... I don't doubt that it happens. There's some quite lovely evidence sayung otherwise.

I just don't manage to understand how.


Have you fallen in love in front of a computer screen?

If not, do you think you could?


#L

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Paraphrasing nikkijame's thread title there, I hope she don't mind. After all, it got me thinking. About love. And keyboards. And other stuff.

During the year that I've been here, I've seen several examples of people finding each other via this place. Some here on the AH others in other areas of the forum. I see people who have just recently arrived here, maybe only a month or two before, have full blown, passionate romances through space and wire.

And I'm equally flabbergasted each time. Pleasantly surprised, yes. Love is grand, and we should sherish it wherever we find it. But I can't figure it out...how can it happen?

What I see here from all of you are just tunnel-visioned snapshots of the real you. There is only a select few of you that I feel that I have a personal connection with, that I really know. And that have taken lots and lots of time.

It's not easy to get under the skin of someone who always has at least a few seconts to figure out how to react to you. Maybe I'm a cynic pariah, or maybe I'm just wired differently than others, but I need to see all the nuances of a face to face conversation, and hear the timbre of a voice to feel that I really get the hang of people.

To connect as intimately as to call it love, and so rapidly over this slow medium... I don't doubt that it happens. There's some quite lovely evidence sayung otherwise.

I just don't manage to understand how.


Have you fallen in love in front of a computer screen?

If not, do you think you could?


#L

type anglish.

 

[minsue]

Have you fallen in love in front of a computer screen?

If not, do you think you could?


#L

I've never had the opportunity to know for sure.

Possibly.



- The ever helpful gosling

 

[oggbashan]

I have met many people who appear to be intelligent, witty and friendly.

The first two are difficult to counterfeit.

I have met in RL, not through Lit, people who were nothing like their apparent screen personas. Why were they different? Partly my incorrect assumptions and partly because all that was revealed on screen was a small part of the complex whole that makes up an individual.

We all play roles in social interaction. Which role are we playing here?

Og who has three on-screen personas.

 

[yui]

Have you fallen in love in front of a computer screen?

If not, do you think you could?


#L

No, I have never fallen in love in front of a computer screen.

I don't think I could, but I would never say never. There are certainly people that post here on the AH that I can honestly say I am attracted to what I know about them (or think I know) on some level, but I don't see it morphing into a spontaneous romantic love.

I always assumed that the couples here (and other places online) simply made a connection on online and the romance eventually moved to different venues (phone, meeting in person, etc.) but I might be wrong.

Stranger things have happened than falling in love with someone you've never met, I'm sure. And, I have read that the internet is the largest gathering of people in human history, so I suppose romance is bound to pop up somewhere, eh?

Luck to all,

Yui

 

[Liar]

I have met in RL, not through Lit, people who were nothing like their apparent screen personas. Why were they different? Partly my incorrect assumptions and partly because all that was revealed on screen was a small part of the complex whole that makes up an individual.

Exactly my point. To get to the point of taking a connection to the next level and more direct communication takes a leap of faith. Faith that the person in the other end is not too unlike the persona you first got to know.

It's true what yui said - people (mostly) take the more serious interaction elsewhere where keys are not an obstacle. But it's getting to that level with a bunch of bytes on a screen that intrigues me.


I just realised something. Not even those thet know me here knows very much about me. My RL identity, or my last name for instance. Dunno why really, I guess the subject never came up.

#L

 

[rgraham666]

Considering how fake most people are even in real life, I don't see one that started over the internet is any worse that one that started any other way.

When you meet someone for the first time, in any circumstance, you're only going to see a small part of the person, and most likely the small facet of themselves they choose to project. Why would you be attracted to that? It's a question that's been asked endlessly and will probably never be answered.

In real life, I'm pretty much what you see here. There's no sense in being dishonest. Dishonesty is too much work and I'm lazy.

 

[brightlyiburn]

You know, I like online relationships.
Whenever your partner is getting too annoying, you can just sign off.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Considering how fake most people are even in real life, I don't see one that started over the internet is any worse that one that started any other way.

When you meet someone for the first time, in any circumstance, you're only going to see a small part of the person, and most likely the small facet of themselves they choose to project. Why would you be attracted to that? It's a question that's been asked endlessly and will probably never be answered.

In real life, I'm pretty much what you see here. There's no sense in being dishonest. Dishonesty is too much work and I'm lazy.

That's probably the most intelligent thing I've heard anyone say, online or off, in a very long time.

 

[rgraham666]

That's probably the most intelligent thing I've heard anyone say, online or off, in a very long time.

Merci beaucoup.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I have met many people who appear to be intelligent, witty and friendly.

The first two are difficult to counterfeit.

I have met in RL, not through Lit, people who were nothing like their apparent screen personas. Why were they different? Partly my incorrect assumptions and partly because all that was revealed on screen was a small part of the complex whole that makes up an individual.

We all play roles in social interaction. Which role are we playing here?

Og who has three on-screen personas.

Jumping off on this- people fall in love in bars, at work, and in all sorts of social situations were people are always 'playing a role.' In that respect the internet is not much different.

When intimacy begins, we nearly always discover that they are different than we thought. (That's why it's intimacy- we learn about them what no one else knows.)

 

[sweetnpetite]

Oh!

I guess rgraham already said that!

 

[nikkijames]

Considering how fake most people are even in real life, I don't see one that started over the internet is any worse that one that started any other way.

When you meet someone for the first time, in any circumstance, you're only going to see a small part of the person, and most likely the small facet of themselves they choose to project. Why would you be attracted to that? It's a question that's been asked endlessly and will probably never be answered.

In real life, I'm pretty much what you see here. There's no sense in being dishonest. Dishonesty is too much work and I'm lazy.

I have to totally agree here.

One, I am brutally honest and blunt both here and in RL. Too damn lazy to lie. Once a lie is told, others need to be told and to remember the original lie is way too much work for me.

People are going to tell you what they want you to know, or believe whether it is face to face in a bar, a club, a baseball game, or the net. You have to use your better judgement and wade through what you believe to be a truth or a falsification.

Some of 'us' are willing to go against the grain and lift the limitations that are set upon us at some point in our life. I am a true believer that there is someone for everyone, are we told where that person is? Who that person is? How we will meet them? NO, we aren't. I am willing to take the chances and explore all facets of life to find that person.

I live by one 'rule' and that is live life to its fullest and have no regrets. You are only here for a brief time, if your next breath was your last.. would you be happy the way it ended? My answer to that is.. yes because I have lived my life to the fullest.

Once again I am sure this is more then you want to know.. but once again.. I don't care. Others have stated their opinion and now so have I.

 

[RebeccaLeah]

Have you fallen in love in front of a computer screen?

If not, do you think you could?
#L

Yes, though it shocked the hell outta me. But we're both the kind of people that don't try to be someone else when online. People that know me on Lit wouldn't be surprised at what I'm like in person, I'm me and that's who I am. *shrug*
Meeting face to face was fun because it was almost like we'd done it before, we knew each other already so well. There has to be more than just the computer, but the computer can help you meet in the first place.

 

[SeaCat]

It's strange that I've seen this happen time after time. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. (My brother met a lady on an online chat board, talked to her for a while, then ended up flying halfway across the country to meet her. He is now married to her.)

I don't think it would happen to me, but then again one never knows. Hopefully I'll never have a reason to find out.

Cat

 

[Guest]

What I see here from all of you are just tunnel-visioned snapshots of the real you. There is only a select few of you that I feel that I have a personal connection with, that I really know. And that have taken lots and lots of time.

It's not easy to get under the skin of someone who always has at least a few seconts to figure out how to react to you. Maybe I'm a cynic pariah, or maybe I'm just wired differently than others, but I need to see all the nuances of a face to face conversation, and hear the timbre of a voice to feel that I really get the hang of people.

To connect as intimately as to call it love, and so rapidly over this slow medium... I don't doubt that it happens. There's some quite lovely evidence sayung otherwise.

While there are some that mask their true selves with "on screen personas", there are also people who are the same person away from here. For some what you see IS what you get. And if Lit were the only contact those people have made I would suspect infatuation with those personas.

But for most, I think, lit was simply what brought them together. Really no different than meeting at the grocery store. You see someone who gets your attention and you feel compelled to get theirs as well.

Maybe it was casual flirting that started it. Maybe it was an exchange of views on each others stories. Maybe it was their views on some other topic. A few PMs get sent back and forth until one or the other or both gets frustrated with the slowness of PMs and invites the the other to chat via Yahoo, MSN, AIM or what ever.

That is where the true romance comes out. No, I'm not talking about cybering. I'm talking about having a private conversation with someone you are interested in. You share views and ideas and ideals, you come to know one another intimately. There are times I swear I can tell how Cloudy is feeling just by the way she greets me on Yahoo. I know how her day has been by the "mood" of our coversations. And I am certain she would tell you the same.

But is it really any different than talking face to face? It still comes down to trust. And you can have the wool pulled over your eyes in person just as easily as as online. I know, it has happened to me. I'm fairly sure it has happened to everyone here. Everyone has met someone that seemed nice at first only to find the real person had a violent temper down the road. Or someone you thought was an ass turned out to be a kind and generous soul that was having a bad day on that first meeting.

There is an old saying, "Love knows no bounds." Just as true on the internet as it is in real life. When two hearts connect it doesn't matter how. There are stories a plenty about romance blossoming through letters mailed across the oceans. Why is electronic text less inviting for it?

I met someone here who has become a part of my life and my very being. I honestly don't know what I would do without her now. And I don't know how I managed without her before. But we met here, we became friends here, we still flirt here. But our love grew on it's own outside these virtual walls. And it grows more each passing day. We both know the distance between us will not be there for long. Yes it is frustrating being physically apart, but we make up for it by being close through the wires. ANd very soon we won't need those wires.

Do I worry that when she gets here she will not be the woman I fell in love with? Nope. Because I know we have both been honest with each other. We both have bad habits and idiosyncracies. We already know about them. We talked about them and understand them. And now they are not problems. Hey! Gee! Whaddya know? Same as if we were in the same town getting to know each other on "Dates".

I used to think it wasn't possible to fall in love over the internet.

Now I know better.

 

[TheEarl]

I don't know if I could or couldn't, but I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't want to. Falling in love with anyone on Lit (who I don't know IRL) would involve a long distance relationship, in most cases very long-distance. That to me equals pain unless regular (weekly or bi-weekly) visits were possible.

Will never say never, cause love's rarely logical, but I'll say that I hope I don't have to go through the long-distance internet-romance pain.

The Earl

 

[Poussin]

.....

 

[fiery_jack]

Originally posted by Poussin We all wear masks in real life

Masks make me claustrophobic. D'ya think i could get away with just a fake moustache and curly black wig?

On a more serious note, i find myself falling in lust all the time. Love is a little more complicated an emotion.

 

[shereads]

It's not only possible to fall in love on the internet, it might be difficult not to, especially if you came here seeking a safer, more manageable intimacy than is available face to face.

It's true what we reveal in PM is just a level removed from the honesty of a face-to-face meeting. I think most of us try to be sincere in how we represent ourselves, if not in an open forum where we're playing and showing off, then in PM where we show a more private face. But even when there's no intentional deception, it's easy to misread someone's meaning, without the clues we take for granted elsewhere: body language, the inflection in a voice on the phone, the outburst of laughter that makes a joke of what might have otherwise been read as an insult, or an invitation to fly to Catalina next weekend for five-way sex with retired circus clowns.



In all seriousness, there's one thing no amount of prior communication can predict: the possibility that something too inconsequential to be worth mentioning will turn out to be the one thing you - or the other party - can't stand. My good friend met Mr. Almost Right at a personals site, got to know him by phone, and could hardly contain her excitement when the time came for their first real life meeting.

She knew everything about him that mattered.

She didn't know that he cracks his knuckles.

He does't crack them all the time; he probably cracks his knuckles no more than she bites her fingernails. The problem is, my friend C has an irrational thing about knuckle-cracking. It's not a minor annoyance of the 'oh! stop that!" type. It's a deep-seated, fingernails-on-the-blackboard, chainsaw-massacre loathing that, as she explained to me when I begged her not to give up on this otherwise perfect relationship, reminds her of when she was four years old and her brother broke his arm and she was close enough to hear the bone snap. She's not being intolerant; she really can't stand that sound.

They were lucky that both lived in Miami. Nobody was sent packing. No one had gone to enormous trouble and no commitment had been made that couldn't be backed out of with a quick Michael Jackson-style moonwalk.

My own experience of a first r/l meeting was mercifully free of deal-breaking personal habits. For me, it would have been a clown wig without the matching nose and floppy shoes. I don't require a circus costume, or even like it particularly. But I can't tolerate anything done half-way.



Seek wisdom among the wise, Grasshopper. We're just a bunch of well-meaning pornographers and their groupies.

 

[cloudy]

Re: Re: Let me say this... Romance.net?

While there are some that mask their true selves with "on screen personas", there are also people who are the same person away from here. For some what you see IS what you get. And if Lit were the only contact those people have made I would suspect infatuation with those personas.

But for most, I think, lit was simply what brought them together. Really no different than meeting at the grocery store. You see someone who gets your attention and you feel compelled to get theirs as well.

Maybe it was casual flirting that started it. Maybe it was an exchange of views on each others stories. Maybe it was their views on some other topic. A few PMs get sent back and forth until one or the other or both gets frustrated with the slowness of PMs and invites the the other to chat via Yahoo, MSN, AIM or what ever.

That is where the true romance comes out. No, I'm not talking about cybering. I'm talking about having a private conversation with someone you are interested in. You share views and ideas and ideals, you come to know one another intimately. There are times I swear I can tell how Cloudy is feeling just by the way she greets me on Yahoo. I know how her day has been by the "mood" of our coversations. And I am certain she would tell you the same.

But is it really any different than talking face to face? It still comes down to trust. And you can have the wool pulled over your eyes in person just as easily as as online. I know, it has happened to me. I'm fairly sure it has happened to everyone here. Everyone has met someone that seemed nice at first only to find the real person had a violent temper down the road. Or someone you thought was an ass turned out to be a kind and generous soul that was having a bad day on that first meeting.

There is an old saying, "Love knows no bounds." Just as true on the internet as it is in real life. When two hearts connect it doesn't matter how. There are stories a plenty about romance blossoming through letters mailed across the oceans. Why is electronic text less inviting for it?

I met someone here who has become a part of my life and my very being. I honestly don't know what I would do without her now. And I don't know how I managed without her before. But we met here, we became friends here, we still flirt here. But our love grew on it's own outside these virtual walls. And it grows more each passing day. We both know the distance between us will not be there for long. Yes it is frustrating being physically apart, but we make up for it by being close through the wires. ANd very soon we won't need those wires.

Do I worry that when she gets here she will not be the woman I fell in love with? Nope. Because I know we have both been honest with each other. We both have bad habits and idiosyncracies. We already know about them. We talked about them and understand them. And now they are not problems. Hey! Gee! Whaddya know? Same as if we were in the same town getting to know each other on "Dates".

I used to think it wasn't possible to fall in love over the internet.

Now I know better.

What Dran said.

Did we fall in love with the persona here at Lit? Of course not. It started here as a mild flirtation, and has moved on from there in other venues.

With the two of us (and that's all I can speak for, obviously), basically what you see is what you get. Dran is pretty much the way everyone sees him here: romantic, chivalrous, sometimes hot-tempered, and extremely loyal to those he cares about. We didn't get to know each other here....we just met each other here.

I don't even see it as falling in love over the internet. The 'net was just what enabled us to meet each other to begin with. The rest was accomplished by more traditional means.

One advantage that no one seems to have mentioned here is that after communicating through PM's, emails, on yahoo, and on the phone over a long period of time, you honestly get to know someone.....really know them. The whole physical thing is pushed aside temporarily. The advantage to that is (and this doesn't apply to me and Dran really, but it's worth mentioning), someone that you might not have given a second glance to in r/l will often turn out to be someone that is perfect for you, personality-wise. Once you've truly gotten to know someone, who they are on the inside, the outside becomes merely window-dressing, and not nearly as important.

Just a thought.

I think the 'net has just made it easier to connect with people that you never would have met otherwise. If it enables you to find someone you love, and that loves you, then that's a wonderful thing.

 

[R. Richard]

I am invovled in a couple of other forums. In one of the forums a boy and a girl had gotten involved by the exchange of messages. They thought they were interested in each other. The boy wanted a photograph of the girl. She e-mailed him a really stunning photograph of a beautiful lady. Unfortunately, the photograph was not of the girl who sent the photograph. After a face to face meeting was set up, the girl panicked. She confessed her 'sin' to the board. Well, I was involved on another board with the boy. The messages he was sending were not the product of his mind, but apparently of one of his buddies.

I pointed out that they should probably go through with the face to face since both of them were lying and maybe they were, in actuality meant for each other.

I do not feel that either party was all that well acquainted with my mother.

What my point here is [yes, I do have one] it is much more difficult to be a convincing phony face to face than over the 'Net. If you are, in reality, fat broad and dumshit, you can maintain a deception over the 'Net, but not in person.

 

[brightlyiburn]

I am very, very honest.
And very, very lonely.

I think the two might be connected somehow

I've found people online who I like. But as with people offline, my choices always turn out to be flawed. It's amazing how many things someone will lie about. I want a man with some balls, damnit it. I doubt I'll find that online. Er, no offense to anyone, it's just that my hopes are really, really low after my experiences.

 

[shereads]

The boy wanted a photograph of the girl. She e-mailed him a really stunning photograph of a beautiful lady. Unfortunately, the photograph was not of the girl who sent the photograph. After a face to face meeting was set up, the girl panicked. She confessed her 'sin' to the board. Well, I was involved on another board with the boy. The messages he was sending were not the product of his mind, but apparently of one of his buddies.

Yikes! I hope you'll paste this at the Story Ideas thread. It's a doosie.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I don't think I'd say I fell in love in front of a computer screen. I had my interest piqued, I had many questions answered, I had feelings develop and I had enough faith in her to drive cross-country and find out for sure.

Eight months, several visits, personal hardships, loss, struggle, distance and other, and things feel stronger than ever.

Before meeting Vella, I loved who I thought she was. I, being a skeptic, couldn't confirm nor deny that love until I'd been with her in real time, real space, real life.

One way to look at it is like this: Before I went to meet her, I loved what I shared with her long-distance. I loved the way she made me laugh, the way she sometimes read my mind, the intensity of the connection I felt with her, and the way she tried so hard to turn me away by being brutally honest. After we met the first time, my feelings changed. Instead of loving my image of her in the morning, I now love my memory of her in the morning. Instead of loving what I thought her smile would be like when I surprised her, I now love the reality of her stunned silence. Before: loved the thought of... After: love the reality of...

I understand the power of meeting someone here. I understand the pull. I also understand the need to make something happen, concerning that power & pull. I hope others understand that the love you find here may not be at all like the love you find during your day-to-day. Sometimes the change is for the better. Other times the change is for the worse. One way or another, though, there will be change.

I really don't believe any feeling should be judged. They're normally raw and without logic. That being said, I think it's wise to wade into the r/l version of everlasting love a bit slower than it happens in cyber-land.



~lucky