What do you think about meeting people online?

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Do you have online friends and/or romances? How do you make first contact with people online? Are online friends as important to you as "real world" friends? Have you brought any online friendships over into the "real world"?

-- ann monroe (monroe@chorus.net), April 06, 2000

Answers

i first got online, with my best friend halsted's help on 16 february 1994... the first person i talked to was wallace beeson. we met in person, 26 february 1994. we got engaged 17 march 1994. and, we got married, 17 august 1997, after living together for over three years.

i don't suggest online relationships for everyone, since i think i was awfully lucky they way things worked out between wallace and i.

and truthfully, other than talking to him online and over the phone, i had no real idea who it was that i had invited to come stay with me at school. he could have been a psycho or something.

just be careful, and use a lot of common sense. and, be honest with the person you met online. that will help immensely.

i've met a lot of other people, who were very not like what i thought they would be offline. and that kind of experience is very unnerving.

-- lara g. beeson (everything.else@mindspring.com), April 06, 2000.


I've made a lot of online friends in the last year and a half. And it's been great. The ones that live close to me I've met and the others I'd meet if there wasn't so much distance.

These friends are definity as important as my 'real world' friends. So far these two groups of friends haven't met yet, but they will at my wedding.

Meeting people online does have a stigma attached to it, but I don't think it should. At least online you can get to know someone before you meet them, assuming that they're honest.

If I'm going to contact someone online, I do what you suggested -- send an email introducting myself and tell them why I'm writing and maybe ask some questions. It's not that hard to keep from being creepy :)

Colleen

-- Colleen W. (triggirl@yahoo.com), April 10, 2000.


Information Technology is a myth propogated by the CIA. It does not exist. Computers do not exist. This is not reality. The people we meet on computers are our fantasies acted out in a dream state. I am a myth! This is not real! I am insane!

*petite snort*

*sigh*

That said, the only people I have personally met on-line are not people I would want to meet in person, but I almost always like Ann's on-line friends --- even the occasional deluded oddball, like myself.

Ms. Enigmatic

-- Ms. Enigmatic (enigma@chorus.net), April 10, 2000.


Of course online friends and romances are as important as "real world" relationships. The only difference between the two is in vision; you can "hear" what they are saying on the screen, but you can't see what they look like or their facial expressions etc. (This is a temporary limitaion in the technology). However, this is almost no different then a relationship a blind person would carry on, its easy to feel as strongly about a person who writes eloquently as one who speaks eloquently. And people who say that it isn't the same because you can't see the person are subject to social prejudice; it really makes no difference if the person you are writing to is a 50 year old man or an 18 year old girl, the important thing is honesty and a connection between two people. Sometimes it is even easier to do that on the internet, most people feel they can be much more open and honest (at least in certain respects).

-- Matt (fourteetwo@usa.net), April 13, 2000.

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