A "theoretical" question ;)

[mousme]

Yeah, so, once again Phnee has been thinking far too much for her own good (I think someone posted the other day that one of their pet peeves is people referring to themselves in the third person, which I kinda like doing as long as I'm being sarcastic... anyway), which has led me to this post.

Since most (if not all) of you are far more experienced than I am relationship-wise, I have a few points on which I'd appreciate your opinion/experience/advice/input/whatever.

Namely (this was inspired mostly by griffen but also by a numer of others) the topic of internet and or/long-distance relationships. Allow me to elaborate (not that you have much say in the matter, and good Lord I've used a lot of parentheses today!):

Up until recently, I had the (admittedly close-minded) view that an internet-based relationship wasn't as good as one based on mutual acquaintance and physical accesssibility.

Now, obviously, not so sure.

So, I was wondering: how do these things work? How does one go from being a random internet acquaintance to having an online relationship? What are the advantages, the disadvantages, the pitfalls, the good, the bad and the ugly?

This actually *is* a theoretical post, in spite of the quotation marks in the subject line (I thought they were funny), but I'd still like to know your opinions on the matter.

Thanks all! :)

Comments

Not much experience...

[vureoelt.livejournal.com]

... but I'll weigh in on the topic. Yes it can pay off. Yes it might work. But be prepared to be burned at least once. If you're lucky, the preparation will be for naught.

Pros: Rather than running into someone by "locale" (bar, hardware store, library, wherever you go) you're more likely to run into someone with the same interests. (Chat room on topic X, etc.) As you may have noticed the guild selection of lovely ladies is somewhat small for instance... ;) So also, you wind up with a bigger pool of people to possibly get something to work through with. And, I guess it's less intimidating for some to not be face-to-face.

Cons: You might be deceived. Intentionally or not, people see themselves as one way and may not see some of their very own big shortcomings. The amount of self-editing and re-inventing might happen. You might wind up with someone very far afield making real human contact serious trouble. If you're willing to do without, then go right ahead. I don't recommend that though. Even if you do meet up, reality may intrude on your interpreted relationship and spike it very thoroughly. You might be played... there was this one girl I knew who was "sweet" with a huge bunch of friends of mine all while keeping it relatively secret.

If you want my personal opinion, I don't think it's for you. I think you'll get burned, possibly burned bad. This type of activity is more for those thick-skinned, prolific date types.