January 7, 2008

  • Internet Intimacy: The Good of E-lationships

    Aha, so I see my post on E-lationships was greeted with remarkable enthusiasm for it being a weekend post. You like reading the tragedies of my youth, eh? You monsters! Just teasing; I wouldn't share it if I didn't feel comfortable doing so.

    So here’s what I got from my first e-lationship, in summary:
    Instant feedback and friendship
    A playmate: she was funny and friendly, and we were too young to bother with dumb “Can a man and a woman be platonic friends?” questions that plague 20-somethings.
    A feeling that I was special, because I knew smart people in different places of the US. I no longer was trapped by geography.
    A freedom to be myself that I didn’t feel in real-life conversation at the time. In real-life, I read faces and feelings too much (I’m not saying correctly! I just said read) and sometimes can’t get my point across as well as I’d like. On the web, I feel no such hindrance; the words flow freely from my brain to my fingers.
    A feeling of rapid intimacy; that we two really did understood each other, that we had all these things in common.                                                                    A friend to close the evening with. This is always one thing that has annoyed me, especially now that I live alone; in the evening, one must close out the day alone, separated from friends. That is no longer a problem with Interent communication.

    So what's so great about knowing and being known on the web? Let me know. I'll post the ending of my first e-lationship and how I feel about it now later this week.

Comments (5)

  • Knowing someone and feeling known brings about a sense of value and worth, and ultimately, a sense of being loved.  The time spent, the attention given, and the effort made are all elements that contribute to the sense of value and worth, especially when these things are not received from other relationships in a person's life.

  • Considering I met my husband online, I think that as long as people know what they're getting into (and are smart about their choices) the internet is a great place to meet people, for either friendship or the possibility of romance. Well, that's one girl's opinion, anyway.

  • boo! I hate it when you make me practice patience, cause I'm really not good with it.

    As for internet relationships, you can be whoever you want to be, control exactly what people know about you. You also don't have as much to lose. If someone stops talking to you online then it doesn't really matter because they never really knew you anyway, and who knows, maybe they were some sketchy 27... er I mean 57 year old man that you were lucky to stay away from anyway. But then you can also get past all the silly pleasantries of real life and just get to what you really want to say as well.

    All this despite my own troubling online friendships that did not turn out so well and taught me a much harder lesson. But I think you know that story.

    Ok, now tell me the end? please? Bedtime story? :)

  • One thing I like about online relationships is that you aren't immediately constrained by gender or appearance. I have a very young-sounding voice and I know I look very young in person — but most people online don't know that and I don't get the slightly condescending tone that occurs sometimes in real life. Also you can get to know people of the opposite sex without the distraction of their physical presence; you don't have to be thinking "this is a GUY" when you're discussing something — you can think "this is a person with silly ideas! I'm off to rebut them now"

  • Answer -- knowing that you connect so well with people on the other side of the world. Of course the downside is that distance. I just like the "knowing" of people, without worrying how I must look to them, sound, if I'm fidgeting, etc.

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