By Riggs
Date: 16 July 2000
Online Relationships: The ultimate oxymoron of our times.
How can you love someone you’ve never met?
Never having seen their eyes sparkle when they laugh. Never having stroked their hair while they slept. You can’t, at least not in the true sense of the word. Online relationships are a crock. They are emotional crutches built on hefty doses of loneliness. How can you engage in anything even close to meaningful via email? I can’t speak for others but finding an email in my inbox, pales in comparison to finding a perfumed envelope in my letterbox. Email should never be used as a relationship life support machine. Especially if the relationship is to be seen as something of consequence. What’s that line from Cruel Intentions? About it being for geeks and pedophiles?
The Internet is so impersonal. You can send a bunch of virtual flowers; how incredibly romantic. Love is about intimacy, about knowing someone completely. The very nature of an online relationship means that love on the net is an oxymoron.
But am I being too harsh? I don’t believe so. Internet relationships rely on placing inordinate amounts of trust in someone you know nothing about. Everything they tell you might be true. However there is a greater than equal chance that what they tell you is in fact not true. How can you be sure that the person in the picture is actually them and not a sibling or friend?
It is an unfortunate fact of life that as humans we have the capability to convince ourselves of almost anything if we try hard enough. If you tell yourself something often enough, then eventually you will begin to believe it. That is how people pass a polygraph. But feeding yourself the big lie and attempting to convince yourself that you are actually in love, is the most foolish thing anyone can do. You are literally setting yourself up for a disappointment of monumental proportions. You see, online, people don’t snore. They don’t chew with their mouths open or laugh at stupid things or get drunk and obnoxious or do any of the million things which make us think twice about entering into a serious relationship. Online there are no relationship safety valves.
However, although they may not do any of the above mentioned things, people in online relationships still are susceptible to doing one thing. They cheat. And for some completely unfathomable reason the person who has been cheated, is often absolutely distraught. As if somehow they expected this person whom they never see, to remain celibate for an indefinite period of time, forsaking all others, even (heaven forbid) those people they see in real life. People have trouble enough remaining faithful to someone they do see and sleep with. What hope is there for someone who is never around? As much as we would like to claim that sex need not be an integral part of a burgeoning relationship, the truth is that is always has been this way, and always will be. It is human nature.
And while we hear about online relationships that have ultimately “worked”, with couples eventually meeting and scampering off into the sunset, hands comfortably nestled in each other’s back pockets, we rarely seem to hear of the longevity of these new relationships. Maybe after a few months she starts getting pissed off when he leaves his socks on the bedroom floor. Maybe the way she constantly corrects him when he uses incorrect grammar begins to wear thin. Maybe one or the other starts to wonder just why the hell they quit their job and moved halfway across the country? But surely my dear, don’t you remember? You were in love.
The reason that quite often these net based relationships do initially take off when the couple meet, is because more often than not, these unions take place in such amazingly romantic places or settings, e.g. the empire state building or Las Vegas, that one couldn’t help but be swept up in the moment and the atmosphere. But when the moment has passed and people must settle into the actual routine of a relationship, only then may we begin to see how much mileage it may have.
Why waste time with online relationships? They are impersonal, often abortive and ultimately empty. As cliched as it may sound, there is a great big world lying right outside. Full of energy, music and the chance to feel alive. It is full of people much like you, and it’s right there for the taking.
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