As I stated in my first Blog post I have never used facebook or myspace so you can imagine my reaction to an article about two people falling in love online. I think it is very strange that people are able to develop romantic relationships online. Maybe I am old school or maybe I am just behind the times but whatever happened to meeting someone at resteraunt or bar and sparking up a conversation? Either way my personal opinion about online relationships is not what I am here to write about.
In Dr. Bob's first question he asked what does it mean to fall in love online and what about online chat rooms facilitate this type of relationship? When it comes to the first question I think that for Alexis, her ability to "fall in love" online was triggered by her "unhappiness" and her inability to be open to her family about her emotions. She found the chat room to be a safety zone and by letting her guard down in the chat room she allowed herself to be susceptible to vulnerability. Online she was able to remove the physical attraction and focus on the emotion and intellectual connection. I don't really understand how someone can be attracted to someone they have never met or seen but in this case it happened. Here is a link to a series of statistics about the popular website eharmony.
I think that these chat rooms and website are able to help people meet others because they are able to target people that have similar interests to them. When you go out and meet in a bar you have to take someone out to dinner and get to know them where as in a chat room you can weed people out faster. Also i think that these people are insecure about themselves and are not confident enough to meet someone in person. I guess I understand the convenience for some people to rely on the Internet to meet people but I am gonna stick to the old fashioned way of meeting people.
I appreciate your "old-fashioned" ideas about meeting people and courtship. I would take issue with the idea that one has to have low self-esteem or be insecure to use the Internet as a way of meeting people. One phenomena very characteristic of our times is that both men and women professionals are very busy so that the usual going to parties or bars, etc. as a way of meeting people is much more difficult. The Internet therefore is an easy and effective way of meeting people with, as you say, common interests with whom you can follow up. And one could of course target other groups looking for people with common interests who might see the Internet as enlarging the pool of possible connections, which I see as one of its greatest contributions to developing human relationships.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I agree with you on this. I feel like the only way that this love worked was because both Alexis and Craig were searching for a connection with someone because they weren't getting that in their real life. I also can't understand how people can fall in love with someone they never met. For me, it isn't really about what people say, but how they say it. How a person physically reacts to something that you say can say so much about how they feel about you and the type of person that they are. Actions speak louder than words, however with online dating actions are not there and all you have is words. Words can say a lot, but not everything.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you're saying Sam that the reason Alexis and Craig ended up being together because they were both searching for some sort of connection on the internet. But I have different opinions about people falling in love when they've never actually met. I see what you're saying about physical attraction and how actions speak louder than words but I do think for some individuals it is possible to fall in love without the inital interaction. Just because words may not contain as much feeling online as when they are spoken doesn't mean they still don't carry a strong message. As said before it is easier for many people to communicate their feelings online rather than in person. In a similar situation Craig and Alexis may not have made the same type of connection if they were just doing the traditional dating thing (i.e. going out once or twice a week, talking on the phone, etc). Clearly the both of them feel more comfortable talking in cyberspace then in person which allowed them to be more themselves and open with the indviduals they were talking with-- which is what caused their strong connection in the first place. Since they met and kept such constant interaction on the Internet, it allowed them to realize what a good match they were for another. But with respect to your post I think it was good that they finally took it to the next level and met because relationships that take place strictly online eventually yearn for more.
ReplyDeleteThe eHarmony stats are interesting; thanks for posting the link, Adam. I was really surprised to read that such a relatively high percentage of married couples had met online. I'd assumed it was increasing in frequency, based on the influx of internet dating sites geared towards commitment rather than hookups, but I still don't know anyone personally who's met that way.
ReplyDeleteI'm neither for nor against it. I figure if someone meets a person he/she connects with and falls in love with, how they met fades into the background in terms of importance.