Nowadays online relationships have become more common than ever before. Many people are extremely picky about the people they choose to date, and they just can’t seem to find anyone that makes them feel that special way. It can be really depressing to be alone for long periods of time, and instead of wallowing in sadness and giving up on finding someone, they turn to the next best thing to the real world: the Internet.
With sites like OKCupid, Match.com, eHarmony and others, not only has it become easier than ever to find potential partners, it’s actually even better than real life is at sending potential partners your way. With dating sites you’re able to see how compatible you may be with another person, what hobbies and interests you share, and read a bit about who they are. This way you can weed out those who you can tell you wouldn’t want to date, while giving more attention to those who you would.
Very often – far more often than you probably realize – people in different parts of the world meet through the Internet either through these sites or through any number of other methods, and they develop a strong connection. They spend hours upon hours talking on Skype video chat, writing messages to each other on Facebook, and sometimes, they fall in love. When this happens, it’s bittersweet; the prospect of warm, fulfilling love makes them happy, while the distance only serves to torment them over time.
Now, I’m not going to lie: most of the time, online relationships don’t end up working out. I mean how can you have a relationship with a person you’re never actually physically with? How can you truly experience each other if you only exist inside each other’s computer? How can you satisfy your sexual desires through a computer screen? You can’t.
However, that doesn’t mean that an online relationship is a bad thing; it just means that it can only truly be a temporary state of long distance interaction. How long that long distance lasts depends on the people in question and what they’re willing to sacrifice in order to make the relationship work. If one partner goes to visit the other and they have a wonderful time together, then great! They’ve discovered that they really do have that connection, and they know they want to fully devote themselves to each other.
But then comes the ever tougher hurdle: who moves where? Do either of them have enough money to move to another state, or another country? Could they find work in that other place? Would they be okay with uprooting their whole life and moving to somewhere that might be completely alien to them, just for the person they love? It all sounds terribly romantic, although maybe not terribly realistic.
The point is that yes, online relationships can work out. But they can’t work out by remaining online relationships forever. That’s a given; we’re animals, we have needs, we require affection and physical contact to be truly satisfied with our relationships. Turning an online relationship into a real one is very hard, but it’s certainly not impossible. The most important thing that a potential couple that meet online should keep in mind is that they’re in for a very difficult ride, and only by making some serious sacrifices and altering the course of their lives can they truly make their relationship work out.
