Don't Dismiss Online Relationships As Fantasy

Columnist Regina Lynn has a look at how online relationships seem to be blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. "The common thread among these stories is that people get deeply involved in online relationships and make decisions about their real lives. Calling any of these online relationships 'fantasy' dismisses the impact they have on the people involved and on those closest to them... I have yet to encounter anything that challenges my core belief: Relationships are real wherever they form."

All relationships are a fantasy

I'm a nerd, remember?

Re:All relationships are a fantasy

True in the context of this article. Online relationships that involve any hint of intimacy is fantasy. True intimacy can only be achieved through physical closeness. This is just a bunch of crap designed for the modern age.

Re:All relationships are a fantasy

What about intimacy through roleplay, which ends up developing into an amazing physical experience when you finally meet the person?

What about making plans to move to another country to live with them after you find out how compatible and perfect you are for each other, all because you decided to roleplay textually online and discover each other's desires?

You can indeed be intimate online. It can tell you a lot about the other person, sexually and emotionally.

Don't dismiss what you haven't tried.

Re:All relationships are a fantasy

I think you're absolutely spot on there. I myself have met some outstandingly nice people online, not just nerds and other people trapped in basements, no, real people! Quite some of my acquaintances are actually rather successful businessmen, most of them from Nigeria, who have become real close friends over the course of the last year. Actually, I'm planning to meet some of them next week, for the first time. It's gonna be a blast! They also told me a lot about some exciting business opportunities, which I'm eager to try.

As you can see, the Internets (yes! all of them) are not for losers only any longer. Friendship is possible!

reminds me of the time

i found out my beautiful elf princess was really a 56 year old man

living in the real world

recently i had a discussion with a friend concerning the nature of community in general and in particular the relationships that make up the online gaming experience. the emotions felt are real. the connections made between individuals are real. therefore imo online relationships are real just as the ones i experience in the office or at home or at the coffee shop are. however, while they may be real, because they comprise real human experience, they are qualitatively different. and i think that this is where it becomes difficult. we haven't related to each other in the ways presented through this new medium, ever. this means that in the social background the rules have yet to be established, the presupposed boundaries and entry points are not agreed upon, leaving us in a liminal stage. it appears to me that once these things are more hashed out the debates about the 'reality' of the nature of online relationships will fade.

Re:living in the real world

however, while they may be real, because they comprise real human experience, they are qualitatively different.

I agree, but there are lots of problems with online relationships, though they are not inherent to the medium. In the grandparent's example, it's easy for a 56 year old male to fake being a young female. The idea bothers me, I'd much rather be conversing with the real person, since a real sexual relationship is out of the question anyway. Perhaps people don't value nonsexual friendship enough, and they try to turn everything into sex.

Re:living in the real world

"In the grandparent's example, it's easy for a 56 year old male to fake being a young female."

There's a simple test for that. Ask the lady to describe herself. If she says: "Well, I have big tits!" it's a dude.

Note to mods:

That's +1 Informative

Re:living in the real world

A bigger problem is I think the focus on appearance. Let's say the GP's example was not a 56 year old male but a young female who was not, indeed, "slim, fit, pretty, etc." Would the same issues be raised as an argument against the medium? People who meet others (friends, lovers, etc.) in the real world misrepresent themselves all the time. It's just that appearance is generally more difficult to misrepresent (though many try through makeup, clothes, etc.).

So why is this such a shock when it occurs online?

I had a similar problem

I had been getting computer advise from someone who I thought was a fat, balding, middle-aged dude working from his moms basement, wearing a Yoda t-shirt and eating hot pockets. It turns out this person was really a ho, horny supermodel who was cruising the internet to find victims to satisfy her lusts and to spend her millions of dollars. You never get over that kind of betrayal

Real?

Relationships are only as real as the people in them. If the person is pretending to be something their not, even by a little bit, that can be greatly magnified online. As long as the relationship STAYS online, it's fine... But meeting the person in real life can be a disaster.

So sure, don't just dismiss them as fantasy, but don't just accept them as reality, either. Same as pretty much everything else in the world.

Re:Real?

If the person is pretending to be something their not, even by a little bit, that can be greatly magnified online.

That's a very good point, it's simply the modern version of the oldest relationship caveat in the book. It's not limited to online relationships by any means, it's just as possible to find someone who can still pretend to be something they're not face-to-face. Like with most of our modern problems and solutions, the Internet just makes it a damn sight easier.

Re:Real?

But meeting the person in real life can be a disaster.

"I don't care if you have a speech impediment. There's no way Bubba can be mispronounced as Betty."
 

Re:Real?

As long as the relationship STAYS online, it's fine... But meeting the person in real life can be a disaster.

Maybe, maybe not. My cousin is married to a woman with whom he was in an online relationship. I know of others who have had mixed success with converting online relationships into IRL relationships. It's kind of like turning a friendship into a real relationship -- sometimes it can work out, other times it won't. It all depends on the two people involved and how ready they are for the relationship and how honest they are with each other and whether or not there is good trust built between them.

And that's the big clue, guys -- relationships aren't built on sex, love, lust or any of those things (though they help to get a good relationship going). Relationships are built in characteristics like caring, trust, and honesty. If any two people share these characteristics with one another, no matter how they met, who they are, or what part of the world they live in, they can have a successful relationship, online or offline.

Re:Real?

Romantic relationships are built on ATTRACTION. While it is not impossible to build initial attraction without physical contact (online), it is often difficult to maintain attraction without it. Things change chemically in the brain after a passionate kiss, after physical touch, after sex.

Caring, trust, and honesty are great things to have in a relationship, but remove the attraction and what do you have? You've got a friend.

Re:Real?

Romantic relationships are built on ATTRACTION.

No, that's just it. Romantic relationships start with attraction, but where two people take it from there is up to them. Think about people who have been married a long time -- perhaps your grandparents. Do you think there is much physical attraction left after 50 years of marriage? How about arranged marriages? Many arranged marriages are extremely successful, and in many cases the two people never met before they got married.

  People who think relationships are built from attraction are the types who are likely to have infidelity in their relationships and/or are the most likely to get divorced. Successful romantic relationship cannot exist without caring, trust and honesty. Successful romantic relationships can exist without attraction -- it's done everyday.

Re:Real?

So true, as three and a half years in my last relationship proved. Without attraction, you're mates.

Re:Real?

I would say the exact opposite. I met my girlfriend on IRC, we've been together over 2 years now. But that only happened after I met her face to face. For a couple years before we met my present GF was just a source of friendly chat. I didn't even (knowingly) flirt. I would never even think of getting romantically involved with someone I never met.

The point is, get to know someone without getting your feelings involved in it. Then when you meet them, you won't be disappointed if they're not like they are on line. Only AFTER you spend some real time with them is it reasonable to develop feelings. If you haven't put in the face time, you're not really falling in love with that person, but the idea of the person. Remember, it's just a game, or it's just chat. It's a great way to make connections, but do your loving in person.

Re:Real?

The last online GF I tried to meet offline turned out to be a cop in drag.

Re:Real?

``If you haven't put in the face time, you're not really falling in love with that person, but the idea of the person.''

IMO, that is always the case. No matter how you interact and how long you have known a person,
you will never know them completely.

I find interacting with people through "poor" media like IRC usually reveals a lot that interacting through "rich" media (like actual face to face conversation) would keep hidden. I think it is because these media _force_ people to realize that the other person can't read your mind and can misunderstand you.

Re:Real?

Relationships are only as real as the people in them. If the person is pretending to be something their not, even by a little bit, that can be greatly magnified online. As long as the relationship STAYS online, it's fine... But meeting the person in real life can be a disaster.

I consider it to be like reading a book and then watching the movie. Regardless of the level truth put forth by the other person I always draw a different mental image of the person and their behavior. When I meet them in person it's always different than what my mental image of them was.

I do my best to act just as I would in real life online as I do anywhere else and I really hope that the other person does too. At least when people meet me they already know I'm a fucking foul mouthed asshole. The rest of me is just gravy ;)

Re:

"But meeting the person in real life can be a disaster." ...or it can work out. I met my wife online, eight years and three kids ago!

Just like any relationships in life, sometimes it's a disaster and sometimes it's great.

Re:Real?

As long as the relationship STAYS online, it's fine... But meeting the person in real life can be a disaster.

Interesting point. I'm generally the sort of person who would dismiss on "online relationship" as fantasy, since you don't really know who the other person is. For clarification, I would say that some relationship IRL are a fantasy, too. People often don't really bother to get to know each other, but instead build up little images in their own heads about each other. Sometimes this goes to an extreme, and the whole "relationship" isn't really a relationship at all.

Like, you know how the girlfriend you had in elementary school wasn't really your girlfriend? You're not really dating or anything, but it was more like you were putting on a play, trying to act how your little-kid mind thought boyfriends and girlfriends acted. Well, if you pay close attention, sometimes you'll catch some adults doing the same thing.

However, I think this one part of your post convinced me that I was wrong. Online relationships can be a real relationship of a sort. I mean, there are business relationships and casual acquaintances, and those are genuine relationships of their sort. They just don't necessarily have a lot of depth or weight. I think online relationships can be of the same sort of thing. They can be genuine online-relationships, but you shouldn't confuse that with being real friends.

I know some people will think this is an arbitrary distinction, but I have real reason for saying it. I think real friendships are forged over time through presence and actions. The bonding of physical presence can't be replaced with "virtual presence", and also actions can't be replaced with words. You can say all the flowery words you want, but my friends are the people who will pick me up from the gutter when I fall in.

And when I say, "pick me up from the gutter", I do mean that metaphorically, but not in the sense of "boost my spirits". I've known people who talk a good game and will tell you that they care about you, but when you actually need something from them, something that will cost them, they won't do it. The idea of "cost" is important here. Lots of people will say and do all sorts of nice things for you, up until the point where it becomes difficult or costly. It's the difference between someone who will spend an evening with you when you're injured, and someone who will spend an evening with you when you're injured even though they'd like to be out partying instead. It's the difference between someone who will help you up when you've slipped in some mud, and someone who will ruin their favorite pair of shoes helping you up when you've slipped in mud.

I just think that those are the moments that solidify friendships, and they're such complicated moments that I don't think they can be replicated over wires. Even if someone will "spend time with you" online while you're injured, they can still do it at their own convenience, in their own comfy chair. Even if they send you some money (which I think is the height of online trust), they're just sending some money. There's nothing very personal there. It's all detached.

If you really don't know what I mean by all of this, and you don't think that physical presence and real-life actions mean more than virtual presence and virtual actions, then I'm very sorry for you.

Happily Everquest After

This reminds me of a hilarious story a friend of mine told me about his Everquest days...

Apparently a group of players decided they're gonna have two of their friends get married in the game, complete with ceremony. I mean they were really serious about this! They apparently sent out invitations and got all worked up over it like it was real.

Unfortunately, upon hearing this, my friend built up an army of warriors to pay a visit to this little event. As the bride and groom exchanged vows, they charged in like Lancelot and began their slaughter. A paralyze spell was used on the bride who was then carried off onto a boat. The groom was hacked to bits and the rest of the wedding party was killed off as the bride and her captor sailed off into the sunset.

Now I have to ask myself this: Do those people have a right to be upset that their "wedding" was so rudely interrupted? Or did this serve as a healthy eye-opener to the ludicracy of the situation and a much needed return to reality for all persons involved?

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while I believe these online relationships may indeed be very strong, there comes a point where you're just going taking this "fantasy" too far. There comes a point where you have to face reality, not escape it. Otherwise we will lose our ability to deal with problems in the real world.

Caller: "When his pet hamster died he yelled, 'Mommy, mommy, where's the reset button?' Lazlo, life does not have a reset button." Lazlo: "But this radio show does! -click- I love that button..."

Re:

If only honorable knights could show up at every wedding and slay half the family. It'd be a quick, guilt-free way to get rid of that pesky Mother-in-Law that seriously won't stop coming by unannounced ten times a week who manages to break in through your

Re:Happily Everquest After

I don't see the problem. The internet is just a communication-medium. Sure they've got the right to be pissed.

Nobody was physically harmed, but quite possibly somone had their fun spoiled. Purposefully destroying the fun of others is rude, regardless of how it happens.

Similarily, if you're sitting in a park and having a quiet talk with someone, you'd be annoyed at someone who decided to leave their ghetto-blaster, playing the soundtrack of a porn-movie at full volume 2 meters away from you. This action too, hurts noone physically (aslong as it's not loud enough to be hearing-damaging) but nevertheless I think you'd find most people would be annoyed at it.

Is it ridicoloous for an amateur theatre-group to have a play where a wedding is part of it ?

And if not, why would it be more or less ridicolous if the players use online avatars rather than their own physical bodies ?

Does the ridicolousness change if some of the players involved have a crush on eachothers ? It's not as if it's unheard of for actors who *play* a couple to also *be* a couple. (or to become one during the period of the play)

I guess I just don't get it. Are relationships that depend in part or in whole on letters, telephones or any other method of communication not "real" ? Why'd it make a difference if your messages go trough the internet rather than trough the telephone-network ?

In all cases you're talking to real people. In all cases there's a real chance that one of the involved persons are less than completely honest. That's part of life, nothing new about it.

Maybe I'm biased. My first girlfriend I learned to know to a significant part trough writing old-fashioned letters. We had 2-3 wonderful years together. My wife I met trough exchanging email. I find the two situations to be very similar, and don't see what's so special about one being "online" and the other being in "real life" at all. If we'd been chatting or role-playing together online, I don't know what the fundamental difference between that and telephone should be.

uh, what is everquest?

isn't it about swordplay and magic and killing things? it's called escapism: a place for people to go and do things they can't do in real life. therefore, you can't hold the standards of behavior of reality against it

so the guy made a bloody raiding party on a wedding. in reality, that's front page horrible news. in everquest, it seems to me to be par for the course

why do you expect any different, why do you think you ever could expect any different? everquest: people have swords and spells. they hurt things. that's the whole damn point of it to begin with: pointless violent escapism. and that's not bad: it's a harmless outlet

i don't think you are deluded. i don't think you are taking something too seriously. i just don't think you understand the rules here

The Internet is not a game and I am not an NPC

I'm a huge internet troll, mainly because i know i couldn't get away that kind of behavior in the real world. my personality online and off are night and day. here i am loud angry and rude. in real life i am quite pleasant. for me, the internet represents catharsis: a mental taking out the trash that leaves me capable of not blowing my stack in the real world

in other words, my personality here is not only completely unlike my personality in real life, my personality here allows me to be someone else in real life. and i completely understand the boundaries

This attitude is precisely the reason I despise internet trolls. Not because of the whole signal-to-noise ratio thing; newbies posting stupid questions and other minor breaches of nettiquette accomplish roughly the same thing and I don't mind them at all. No, the reason I hate trolls is because they treat the internet like some kind of damned videogame and other people on it like NPCs at worst, other players to be "beaten" in the "game" at best. But despite the fact that you're accessing the internet through a keyboard and screen, it's not a damn game. And I don't mean that the internet should be a serious, demure place of pure business and scholarship either; I'm here to have fun more often than I'm here to do work. I just mean that the internet is less like baseball and more like a game of catch, less like the debate team and more like chatting in the living room with your friends. It's not a competition, you can't win at it, and so playing manipulative social games trying to get certain reactions out of certain people for fun (or "catharsis" as you say) is just as despicable as if you were to treat IRL conversations with your friends that way. (Granted, some people do the same thing in real life, and I'd consider them assholes too).

Do you assume a different persona and play social games when you converse over the phone? How about through postal mail, on the off chance that you actually write letters to people? Why is the internet any different? It's just another means of communication - one which, due to its breadth and efficiency, is if anything MORE like real life than the phone or mail.

The same thing applies to people who are dicks in the non-game aspects of online games, e.g. game chat. Yes, if you're playing a competitive game the objective is to blow up the other guy or what have you, and you shouldn't complain that people are being "mean" when they do so efficiently. At the same time, there's this little thing called good sportsmanship which has been pretty well established in real world competitive activities, and I see no reason why it applies any less online. So, just because someone is competing against you in something that actually IS a game on the internet, doesn't mean that when you communicate with them within the context of the game (but "out of character", if such a concept is relevant) you're free to be a dick, anymore than it's OK to shout demeaning insults at the other team in a real-world sport, or to gloat over your victory or throw a tantrum over your loss.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for people behaving differently in person and online. Someone may be more or less comfortable in one venue than in the other, and so censor certain parts of themselves where they're not comfortable expressing such traits. But then, that just gets back to what the person you're responding to was saying; some people reveal their "true personality" more online than they do in real life. If you might be inclined to be an asshole in person but don't feel that that's OK, so instead you're an asshole on the internet (which honestly I've never seen you be, here on Slashdot at least), then that means that somewhere in your "true personality", you're an asshole, and you just censor that in real life and let it out on the internet so it doesn't stay bottled up. Even if the actual personas you're adopting online are all fake and consciously so, just put on for the response that other people give

MMORPGs

The author doesn't mention this, but I would just like to state that this usually does not apply to MMORPGs. I have seen "friendships" breakup so someone could boost their Stamina. While I'm sure some real friendships do take hold in that environment, most are purely superficial. Or at least that has been my experience in my 6 or so years of online gaming.

Re:

Can you really blame them for wanting to play the game they're shelling lots of good money out to access, though?

Not at all. But some people don't think that way. Recently, a friend of mine lost a lot of his "friends" to another guild. He thought he was good friends with these people, but now they don't talk. I explained exactly what you said. This is a video g

Re:

IME, a huge percentage of real-life relationships are equally superficial. One of my ex-cow-orkers, who I thought of as a friend, vanished of the face of the earth after he retired. That is no different from the online friendships.

Real? - of course

I have had many meaningful conversations with my best online buddy Elisa. She wont agree to meet in the real world though.

Re:Real? - of course

How does it feel that she wont agree to meet in the real world though?

it can work

I know multiple couples who are now married, 2 of which have children, who met online in a band's message forum (Eisley's Laughing City) so it can work. I've dated a couple girls through the forum but i don't have the personality for long distance relationships. With one I was very much in love but the distance just erodes things away.

I always shake my head when i hear respected professionals denounce online relationships as fake. It just goes to show they have no understanding of the online culture.

My Wife and I met on #php

We met back in 2001 on what now is FreeNode's #php channel. This past summer, we finally tied the knot. I ended up moving up to be with here (I was living in Pennsylvania at the time. She was living in Montreal). We are happily married, and have been a happy couple ever since we first started being a couple. Both of us are absolutely thrilled at the way we met. I've also developed a rather one-sided opinion that programming chat rooms are great places to pick up chicks. =)

Friendship can be real.

This month, a friend of mine I have known for over a decade flew accross the country to meet me in person for the first time. We had been friends since we worked on a failed project to produce an Open Source Mega Man video game that got to a certain point then failed. We stayed IRC friends for for 11 years, and he came to visit me for 6 days in August. This isn't to say I don't have friends in the real world that come visit me too, I do. but I had always known who he was, and he and I were really friends.

Now. Relationships are another matter. Relationships need an element of physical proximity. They fall apart anyway. I wouldn't feel comfortable in an online relationship. Long distance relationships generally don't work out even when its telephone conversations.

Re:

True. Very few game-characters snore.

strawman?

I wonder what the actual percentage of 'relationships' online have turned out where one of them was being clearly deceitful, i.e. a male pretending to be female. It's probably really really low, yet people have this unreal anxiety that they can't trust someone simply because they haven't met them face to face.

Sure, caution is needed, but many people are finding love online, and if it works for them, can't we be happy for them? It's hard to meet people in today's society. It's not like we have town dances or whatever the devil they did 100 years ago. (yes, i'm sure some town's have dances still). And really, in the 19th and early 20th century many relationships developed via letters. My grandmother used to send daily 'what's up' postcards to people in the next town before phones, and when phones came along I'm sure many people new each other first only through that medium. So I don't think this is a new phenomenon. If you make the assumption that the other person is honest and fall in love with them, and that assumption is correct, you win. If it somehow isn't, well, there are 50 ways to leave your lover.

Based off what I've seen, we could all use more lovin, online or otherwise. Won't get it as easy by pigeonholing your possible relationships avenues.

It's posts like this

...that makes you wish /. had "+1 OMG Say it's not so" moderation points.

It's okay, nothing wierd going on..

That's what I tell myself when I catch two elves in the basement of Goldshire Inn behind the Kegs, coming out smoking long bottom leaf with a creepy smiles on their blushed faces.

EVERYTHING OKAY. Proceed with life

Matter of Definition

``Relationships are real wherever they form.''

That sounds like it wasn't what you expected. Apparently,
people have some idea that relationships should only
developed through normal means, for some definition of normal.

And there, I said the magic word: definition. What is the
definition of relationship? When is a relationship real? What
means are normal?

My feeling is that this is going to be similar to the question
whether machines can think. Some people define thinking in a way
that machines can't possibly satisfy (usually, the argument is
exactly "if a machine does it, it's not thinking"). Other people
use definitions where thinking machines are always just around
the corner, but never actually there. And some people use
definitions by which we've had thinking machines for a long
time now.

As for relationships, I think that, no matter what your definition
of a relationship is, the (real) feelings you get from interacting
in a virtual world are about the same as those you would get if
the interaction had happened in the Real World. For me, that makes
the relationship real.

Of course, some aspects of relationships that develop in the Real World
will be missing from relationships that develop in some virtual
reality. On the other hand, there may be things in virtual reality
relationships that aren't in Real World relationships. There are
some very interesting effects here. For example, there are great
opportunities for misrepresenting and hiding things...in both virtual
and Real relationships.

Virtual reality being virtual, it also provides great opportunities for
experimentation. Some people never get past the "let's offend people
and see what happens" stage, but other people go much, much further.
Some people get married and/or have children in virtual reality, and
I think that this gives them some insight in what it
would feel like if they did the same thing in Real Life. To me, this
seems a valuable experience. And I'd much rather this experiment be
run in virtual reality with virtual children than in Real Life with
Real children.

All this is my 2 cents, of course, but those cents have been given to
me as the result of having both Real World and virtual reality
relationships, and even some that were both.

The ups and downs of online relationships

I've been around technology long enough to see some of the ups and downs of online relationships. I've met people online, both male and female, with whom I've developed good bonds of friendships. I've never 'e-dated' anyone, but I've seen plenty of people do it.

I've played World of Warcraft for the last year and a half or so and when that many people come together it's only natural that some of them develop relationships. Sometimes these things turn out really good and the people actually start seeing each other in real life if they're physically close enough to do so. I don't know if it's happened on the server I've played on, but I have heard of people getting married after meeting in an online game after e-dating for a while and eventually getting to know each other better in real life.

Of course there are also the horror stories of online dating as well. I've seen relationships that haven't worked out and it makes some people bitter. There have been people kicked from guilds or guilds that have been broken up over the drama caused by some online relationships. The worst (and perhaps the funniest) thing I've ever seen is when two people who were e-dating on our server broke up and the girl posted some pictures of the guy posing naked in front of a webcam for her. The thread managed to last overnight before the GM's removed it, but a substantial portion of the server got to see a guy grabbing his junk and trying to strike a sexy pose.

One of my friends had a younger brother who met someone online and recently moved to live with them on the east coast after visiting and having a good time. I think there are a lot of people who scoff the idea of online relationships, but with the technology we have in the world today, I think they can be a good thing. Of course when the people in them don't act intelligently they can turn out bad and people you know see you wearing nothing but a smile on the internet.

This isn't science

This is writing by a columnist, not a study or any kind of rigorous analysis. It is written by someone whose job is to celebrate and market sexual neurosis as a way of spicing up Wired's otherwise geek-heavy material. It is not science. It doesn't even pretend.

This reminder brought to you by the people out there who haven't yet succumbed to iPhone-style hype religion about the internet, technology or humanity.

Thank you for reading. You will now be returned to your regular neurotic programming.

Identity theft...of sorts

I thought I would share my little story of "online relationships". I have a profile up at a site that caters to a gay demographic, and on there I've got about like 12-13 pictures and a little blurb.
Anyway, so one day I get a message on there which read something like: "Why are you using a dead guy's pictures?". This puzzled me so I replied that in fact I'm using my own pictures. His reply to that "No, the pictures you are using are of a guy named such-and-such and he lives in [a town like 26 states over] and he recently passed away and you suck for using his pictures".
Anyway, I won't go into details here, but I offered to prove to him that I was the person in the pictures, not because I felt like any particular need to prove it, but because I felt like he needed some closure. And so we did (webcam does the trick nicely).
Anyway, then the story came out - he'd been talking to someone on craigslist of all places who posted an ad with my pictures. They got into it quite heavily (though obviously they never met), talking every day and such. Finally, when this other guy got bored of the game he invented a cyber-death and had his "sister" email the original guy to tell him that her brother is dead.
Long story short, it was interesting to examine this situation. The poor man, he seemed totally crushed. He even told me at the end that he could never really get to know me as a person, since he's tied my pictures to whatever personality the liar invented. For my part, I also felt very bad - I'd almost say guilty - even though I did nothing wrong. And I really pitied the guy - his emotions were wracked in a very real way, even though the entire thing occurred online, and even though, let's face it, he should have known better.

All relationships are fantasy

They existed solely in your head. Most people can also find someone who has a relationship with them in their head.
There is no two way communication. There is your feeling towards someone else, it does not mean they have the same relationship with you.

Fortunately, when the fantasy is smashed, most people can get up and go on..but some keep living their fantasy until they believe it is true.

The problem with online relationships, is that people bond(i.e. have mutualy ralationship fantasy) without key data. Looks, mannerisms, daily behaviour off line.
All of which is important, for very real reasons.

Re:Who says online relationships are not real?

They are real alright.

Depends. As I have noticed, online relationships' realness depends on how well they pass the test of time, and how well the relationship survives the shit it goes through.

Now that I come to think about it, it's the exact same thing in real-life relationships. Real-life one night stands or relationships that live no longer than a couple of weeks have little credibility.

Re:

Relating online is also totally different to spending time with someone for real. In real life you can't do funny animated emotes like on MSN, you have to use your actual emotions. You also have to go out and eat and generally do things which are more focu

Re:Who says online relationships are not real?

Wait, are you trying to say that interacting with someone online and in real-life produces different experiences!? NO WAI! Does it also mean I must put clothes on, look presentable and not pick my nose when I'd hypothetically interact with people in the real world?

Mind boggling!

Re:Who says online relationships are not real?

Right, because no one puts on perfume or aftershave to hide their true scent in person.

And no one works on changing their voice so they can appear to be more (or less depending) authoritative than their normal voice makes them seem.

And no one dresses up (or down) to try and mask their socio-economic status from whatever social circle they're trying to get into.

And no one flat out lies about themselves in the real world too. All perfectly honest.

Just because you're close enough to a person that you could slap them, doesn't mean the person is any less of a mirage than they are online. Hell, in the world of blogs, you can often find out more about someone than you can from meeting them.