First, it seems to me that if you meet someone you've had an online relationship with and you continue to communicate online, you're no longer in an online relationship; you're in a long-distance relationship.
It seems to me that the problem with strictly online relationships is that various psychological quirks can make them appear to be much more serious than they really are.
I think the "realness" of an online relationship depends on the length of time it has gone on and the quality of the communication. By quality, I mean not just the frequency and length of individual conversations, but the range of things discussed and the emotional depth - in particular, how honest the people are about their true feelings and revealing who they truly are and the number of times they've had to resolve disagreements.
The medium used for communication is also important.
Exchanging a few text messages every day for a year with some random person might lead you to believe you understand who they are, but you can't trust that feeling. The medium makes it easy for people to present a false persona. Also, we're all capable of taking a small amount of information about someone, leaping to a completely unjustified conclusion and seeing them as we want to see them, not as they actually are.
The opposite extreme would be a year of hours-long video calls every day supplemented with random texts and non-video chats. That sort of online relationship would probably result in the people experiencing each other in all sorts of moods, and the fact they could see each other would permit most of the usual non-verbal communication cues to come into play. The sheer amount of time spent talking to each other would allow them to get to know a lot about their past and current lives, how they each deal with life's challenges, what they aspire to, and so on. If it progressed to video-sex, that could result in even greater honesty and a better understanding of each other.
Finally, something no strictly online relationship will ever allow is the use of our sense of smell. That's actually pretty important when it comes to choosing a mate, although most people aren't consciously aware of it. I'm sure it would be possible to develop a deep, totally honest and emotionally complex relationship with someone online, only to discover when you actually meet that there's just something "off" about them. That could be because you see things in real life you'll never get online, but it could be because they smell "wrong", and I don't mean that they stink because their personal hygiene is poor.
Are online relationships real?
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First, it seems to me that if you meet someone you've had an online relationship with and you continue to communicate online, you're no longer in an online relationship; you're in a long-distance relationship.
It seems to me that the problem with strictly online relationships is that various psychological quirks can make them appear to be much more serious than they really are.
I think the "realness" of an online relationship depends on the length of time it has gone on and the quality of the communication. By quality, I mean not just the frequency and length of individual conversations, but the range of things discussed and the emotional depth - in particular, how honest the people are about their true feelings and revealing who they truly are and the number of times they've had to resolve disagreements.
The medium used for communication is also important.
Exchanging a few text messages every day for a year with some random person might lead you to believe you understand who they are, but you can't trust that feeling. The medium makes it easy for people to present a false persona. Also, we're all capable of taking a small amount of information about someone, leaping to a completely unjustified conclusion and seeing them as we want to see them, not as they actually are.
The opposite extreme would be a year of hours-long video calls every day supplemented with random texts and non-video chats. That sort of online relationship would probably result in the people experiencing each other in all sorts of moods, and the fact they could see each other would permit most of the usual non-verbal communication cues to come into play. The sheer amount of time spent talking to each other would allow them to get to know a lot about their past and current lives, how they each deal with life's challenges, what they aspire to, and so on. If it progressed to video-sex, that could result in even greater honesty and a better understanding of each other.
Finally, something no strictly online relationship will ever allow is the use of our sense of smell. That's actually pretty important when it comes to choosing a mate, although most people aren't consciously aware of it. I'm sure it would be possible to develop a deep, totally honest and emotionally complex relationship with someone online, only to discover when you actually meet that there's just something "off" about them. That could be because you see things in real life you'll never get online, but it could be because they smell "wrong", and I don't mean that they stink because their personal hygiene is poor.