~YOUR THOUGHTS~
Hi Wendie,
first of all, excuse me for my english, if I have any mistakes, it’s not my first language : ) Well, that being said, I need some brutal truth. I’m 20, and I’m a really ( I mean it, REALLY ) shy girl. I just had a boyfriend, back in high school. I’m currently in college but, since I’m really quiet and shy, I barely have friends there… Anyway, the point is, I’ve been talking on Messenger with this guy for a while, and I just… this is going to sound crazy, I know… but I do feel I just love him. He’s everything I wanted in a guy, even if I don’t know him in person. So a few months ago, he told me that he really liked me too, and we started to “date”. He lives in Canada, and I live in South America. So, honestly, how realistic is this? I know this can’t work… (right?)but as crazy as this might sound, I have feelings for him. He says he’s going to visit me soon, and that kinda scares me a bit. What if I meet him and we are complete strangers? I mean, do online dating really works out? I’m really confused. Any advice? 
~MY THOUGHTS~
Friend, yes, I have advice. I’ve walked this road and you probably won’t like what I have to say to you, but I’d rather give you truth over coddling.
First of all, can people meet online, fall in love and live happily ever after? Yes, it happened to me. I’m also aware that my story was very rare and the people in my life and my husband’s life were very skeptical. We were an exception to the rule.
If you are communicating through Messenger, you don’t know who this person is. Do you have his name, address, home and cell numbers? Have you spoken in person, do you know where he works? Have you Googled him? Because if it’s just online conversation, this person could be anyone. It could be a fat housewife from Wichita. It could be a pedophile from Paducah. It could be me (it isn’t).
I “met” someone on Messenger many years ago. We communicated quite a bit that way. I thought I had developed very strong feelings for him (I was 20, too). We did speak on the phone and eventually meet in person several times. Our “relationship” continued on and off (many huge off spans) for over a decade, but circumstances always kept us apart. Guess what? His circumstances came in the form of a wife and two kids. Almost everything he portrayed himself to be was false. He was a master — and there’s lots of them out there — at figuring out what I needed to hear and feel and preying upon that. It’s an ability, a gift and at the time, there wasn’t Google to help me get smart.
So, here’s the deal: If you’ve exchanged your stats with him (i.e. phone numbers) and are planning a real-life visit, this would be my advice:
Have him stay at a hotel. Do not have him at your home. Tell friends, family, etc. exactly where you are at all times. And most of all, don’t be disappointed if this doesn’t develop the same as the version you’ve formulated in your mind. No matter what you’ve shared at a computer, you are complete strangers.
The feelings you have now, the ones that feel like love, exist because this person gives you something your soul really craves. When you are behind a monitor, it’s so much easier to be open, honest and just share of yourself — isn’t it? Shyness isn’t such an obstacle. And I don’t dismiss what you feel — just remember, nothing is real on the Internet. It just isn’t. It can be a crutch, a fix, a high, but there is no replacement for real-life, face-to-face connection.
I wish you luck.
FAT-FREE VERSION: Get his info, Check him out, Reign in your feelings
I also met my partner online (Myspace ftw yay)! And he turned out to not be a crazy murderer which was a great starting point
We were talking for about 6 months before we met in real life and I did all the things you suggested. I googled and got pics and stalked to make sure he was an actual person etc. My situation was also a little different with the fact that he USED to live in my town and had family here but had moved to another state to live with his Dad.
We’ve been together 18 months now and he has a 15 month year old son that I am a very happy Stepmumma too. (Long story short, the Mum is an old “friend” *wink wink* who didnt bother to tell Steven she was pregnant till we’d been together for 2 months “hey surprise you’ll be a Dad in a month yay”)
However I have a workmate who has had two online “relationships” the first one was an obvious fake and i do not for the life of me understand how she thought this guy was a real person. I mean, his profile pic was a male model, it was the ONLY pic he had, and every single one of his friends was a chick (this was on facebook by the way) I had to break it to her that I didnt think he was legit and she should ask him for pics of him with certain objects etc. She asked, he disappeared off the face of the planet.
The second guy she is “dating” is a real person and he is now living with her and he has no job and the other day he managed to lose her wallet. Sigh.
So yeah, it can happen, but often the guy or girl turns out to be a fake. You just have to be smart about it really. This reminds me of a hilarious picture I took from a real magazine. Somebody ACTUALLY sent this into a magazine psychic… http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/85/l_cec0a0ae6574925e05b6875fcd0854ad.jpg
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Comment by CazMinx — August 11, 2009 @ 3:05 pm
Hi, about a year ago I started to develop feelings over a friend of mine I had met through the Internet (we had been speaking for a year before I started fancying him). He told me he liked me too and after talking it through, he came and visited me. It was rather bad. We got on well, but it was awkward all the time and when he left I felt very relieved. He still had strong feelings for me but I didn’t feel anything any more, and well, we stopped talking. His visit had made me feel a bit awkward to say the least.
A bit later I met my current bf on the internet, but that’s a different story because we went to the same Uni so after a week of talking on msn we met, so it’s not like we had been talking on msn for months.
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Comment by Mire — August 12, 2009 @ 7:42 am