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James121

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41 minutes ago, Snao Cone said:

I similarly was socializing on the internet in earlier years (mid 90s) and the idea that you could make friends that way was foreign to most people. I had falling outs with irl friends because I talked about online people as if they were friends (which they were). I didn't intend to keep it all online or all anonymous, even though this was in the era of 28.8k modems and no digital cameras. Since then the internet and world using it has grown more accepting of forming bonds this way and I'm glad to see that change. Online relationships can be very meaningful if physical touch or proximity isn't an issue. 

I feel like 100% of girls have the experience of losing their entire friend group at some point in adolescence. 

 

I also had mostly online friends as a teenager, and this was back in 1995 so we're talking old timey chat boards and dial up AOL. Also had my first gay event online... one of my friends said she was into me, I freaked out, she deleted her account, and I ended up coming out a year later. 

 

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/me is now rocking out to old modem sounds 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Skullery Maid said:

I feel like 100% of girls have the experience of losing their entire friend group at some point in adolescence. 

It happened to me multiple times, and I'm better for it. :D Nasty breakups, romantic or platonic, build useful skill sets.

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Just now, Snao Cone said:

It happened to me multiple times, and I'm better for it. :D Nasty breakups, romantic or platonic, build useful skill sets.

Ughhhhh mostly yes. Some of them are too hard to do anything but break a little over. Not every hurt I've survived has made me stronger, unfortunately. 

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52 minutes ago, Skullery Maid said:

I feel like 100% of girls have the experience of losing their entire friend group at some point in adolescence

99.999% maybe. I never had any friends so didn't have anyone to lose, let alone an entire group!! haha :P

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2 hours ago, ryn2 said:

Some of it depends on what you do for a living, too.  I’m way older than both of you

I agree with this. I'm older than most people here, but also worked in tech. I do find that many of my contemporaries are less into things like internet forums and online stuff (although they may be into smart phones).

 

I agree with many others about some of the advantages of meeting people online and getting to know them this way (especially for us introverts?). I also see good things about meeting people in person when possible, too. Some of my best friends, as well as other acquaintances, are people I met online first. I think I'd still be friends even if we never met in person, but meeting in person does add an extra dimension for me.

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I have many wonderful online-only or online-mostly friends.  I just think (for me, personally; I know it works really well for a lot of people) a romantic relationship would be a struggle that way.

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25 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

I have many wonderful online-only or online-mostly friends. 

Actually now that I think about it I have like actual 2ish friends and they're both people who I met on AVEN years ago. I've never met them in 'meat life' but I'm closer with them than anyone in the meaty world.

 

It's funny because I also hang out with @Una Salus Victus very occasionally when we get on the piss, which is more than I've ever hung out with any other person in 'meat life' but we've never actually met in person. Haha. Last time we had drinkies someone else from AVEN had drinkies with us too.

 

I guess AVEN is literally my version of 'going out and socialising' haha, I've never done that in the meaty world and I'm not sure I ever will 😛

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Joe the Stoic

 

3 hours ago, Ficto. said:

(though I'd love to have knowledge of like 7000 years of existence, all the people who lived during that time and the kingdoms that were built and fell, and the battles etc 😍)..

Are you trying to advertise yourself to me for online love or something?  Quit checking my boxes and leave me alone!

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Definitely feel that relationships that start off online can definitely work. It's how I met my partner, and we were living in different countries at the time! She hadn't ever even left her home country before lol. We didn't even meet on a dating site or anything, it was just a cool chemistry online and randomly we each voice chatted for the first time with someone foreign, and now we've been together for almost a decade. 


A couple great things are that it allows you to (a) meet and focus on people with similar interests or that want something similar to what you do, (b) a larger pool of possible candidates, and (c) you minimize the issue of flubbing the first impression, as you have time to think about how you will introduce yourself.

 

I think the really cool thing that has happened since our experience is that meeting people online has become de-stigmatized. I know it was very awkward trying to explain how we met to people, especially those early days, but these days even mainstream folks have online only friends, and 'swipe left/right' is part of the slang lol.

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2 hours ago, Ficto. said:

Actually now that I think about it I have like actual 2ish friends and they're both people who I met on AVEN years ago. I've never met them in 'meat life' but I'm closer with them than anyone in the meaty world.

 

It's funny because I also hang out with @Una Salus Victus very occasionally when we get on the piss, which is more than I've ever hung out with any other person in 'meat life' but we've never actually met in person. Haha. Last time we had drinkies someone else from AVEN had drinkies with us too.

 

I guess AVEN is literally my version of 'going out and socialising' haha, I've never done that in the meaty world and I'm not sure I ever will 😛

Yeah I've been more social on AVEN or with AVEN people in the last nearly 5 years than I have in real life, despite not having met anyone in person yet.

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Since my work days are usually pretty boring I like to ponder stuff quite a bit. So part of my ponderings for today were the last part of that sentence of yours there about love needing to be personal to be considered as love.

 

Once again I use my past experience with my SO. In our online relationship, for the time that it lasted, she both got to know the utmost depths of what was in my head, and she in kind shared back. It couldn't get much more personal than that when you can empty your soul out to somebody in complete trust. There is of course the aspect of physicality, but if you want my honest opinion, I place less emphasis on the physicality aspect because frankly, I think it's rarer to find somebody that you share the same bandwidth mentally as opposed to finding somebody you can have sex with.

 

It's one thing to have sex, but it's another thing entirely to entrust somebody else with the absolute darkest, or brightest recesses of what you carry in your mind. In online relationships, due to the lack of the physical barriers, it's a tad easier to both find people and share things that we otherwise neccessarily wouldn't in person.

 

When I chose to take the final step with my SO and meet in person, we clicked instantaneously because we both already knew how our minds functioned inside and out. And that's when we both discovered another level of intimacy in the physical sense as opposed to mental. But that certainly didn't negate the old level of intimacy in the online aspect. If she hadn't loved me and I to her, even in online communication we wouldn't have continued to persist as long as we did.

 

Had those feelings of love not been real, neither of us would've taken the leap and the effort to actually meet in person and finally start closing the physical gap. And sometimes, like you alluded to, people never do meet up.

 

I've a bit of a comparison to that. Pain is pain right? Stub your toe or hack off your arm with a bonesaw. Is stubbing your toe therefore not painful just because having your arm hacked through exists on a higher level of pain?

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I've had a MASSIVE amount of friendships, relationships, etc. largely based on the internet. And I don't think I'm at all unique in that, but I think I have some perspectives worth sharing here. (Beware: this is long)

Tl;dr, online relationships (or relationships that have emerged starting online) have consistently been more fulfilling for me because I've had the ability to find people I can identify with, which I really could not have if I just did so in person. Also, I get into relationships, friendships, developmental psychology, and my personal experience.
Tw mental illness, abuse, isolation, the good ol' stuff

When I was younger especially, I moved around a lot, didn't come by friends (or rather, really fulfilling relationships) that easily in settings I found myself in (schools, home, neighborhoods I lived in, etc.). It quickly got to the point where I constantly felt isolated and my social growth and development was disrupted because I felt THAT different from my age-level peers. I was mute when I was younger, and being around people I didn't identify with extended that lack of social development, even well into when I was able to speak. I was obviously very gifted from a young age (I taught myself to read and play nursery rhymes on piano by ear by the age of 3), and I received almost no enrichment or support for all of it until I sought it out myself (rather, until I was at an age where I had any semblance of control over my education). As I aged a little bit more, I ended up getting involved more in special interests of mine, investing myself in academics and music (among other things), and I ended up being scouted and recruited by talent search programs (that happen to recruit from around the world). Needless to say, then and even to this day, the majority of the formative and satisfying and fulfilling relationships I had were with people I could only communicate with long-distance.

Most of my best friends (and friends, in general) throughout my life I've met either directly through programs like those or as a result of being a part of them. Many of the people I have the strongest relationships with are people I've never met in person. If not, I've only met them months or years after starting to talk to them, or I only see them very rarely. My best friend right now (who has been in my life for several years) is someone I have yet to meet in person. I met my current SO through mutual friends (from those programs), and again, we've talked exclusively over the internet so far. My longest term relationship started by talking online, and then us meeting in person, and we eventually moved in together for a time. Of all the people that I've ever been intimate with, most have been long distance and heavily relied on the use of the internet to maintain those relationships.

For some people, for a variety of reasons, it's not as feasible to have relationships that are fulfilling, have longevity, and provide the support, acceptance, and sense of engagement and interest that helps people (especially developing people) grow. For me, I chose to invest in online friendships and relationships online because in-person relationships weren't as feasible while also providing those key things that make relationships fulfilling in the first place. I did it (and still do) to avoid the threat of otherwise social isolation and stunted development due to moving around constantly, dealing with severe mental illness, neurodiversity, exceptionality, and the repercussions of having notably high intelligence (among probably many other things). Not to say "woe is me, I have talents and skills that others don't come by very often". But the restriction of social development in gifted children often derives largely from that sense of isolation from social relationships, especially those with peers (based on gaps/major disparities in intellectual abilities, social habits, interests, etc.). That has the potential to result in all sorts of developmental problems, especially for someone in an already abusive household (as I was), dealt with mental health problems. But the lack of healthy relationships I had in my life is a BIG factor in regards to my choice to have and maintain social relationships online more often than not.

If it weren't for these relationships and the opportunities to maintain them via the internet, my life would be different in just about every conceivable way. I would even go as far as saying that it's VERY likely that I'd be dead right now if it weren't for those relationships and my ability to have them, via the internet.
Fortunately enough, I've had the choice to invest in relationships with people online, and the alternative to not having relationships with people primarily online very likely would have been a life much more bleak (and potentially much shorter) than this one. Basically, if it hasn't gotten through by now (and I cannot stress this enough), the internet has been and will continue to be an unequivocally important part of my relationships of all kinds, probably until the day I die. And that rings true for romantic relationships, also. Because why on EARTH would I be attracted to someone if I weren't compatible with them emotionally, intellectually, and platonically? It wouldn't have been nearly as feasible for me to meet people I felt attracted to and compatible with if it weren't for the internet, and that's (yet again) a big factor as to why I tend towards being online and seeking out relationships that way.

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I lost my gradeschool-middle school (lower school for the non-US folks) friend group to jealousy (not mine - in one case a third party willfully split everyone up; in the other a former friend of the leader returned from a few years away and the leader cut some of us off for befriending both her and the returning girl), life changes (my bestie left town for ballet school at 12 or 13), and drugs (again, not mine).  My eating disorder didn’t really surface until college, which is not to say I wasn’t an anxious, socially-awkward, bullied-and-ostracized mess well before then.

 

I had the early “gifted means you get more work!” punishment-feeling experience growing up.  It was also a era when “teaching kids before it’s time for them to learn” was very frowned-upon, so my mother made me hide what I’d taught myself so she wouldn’t get in trouble for the “teaching me” she didn’t actually do.  My parents were largely neglectful rather than abusive.

 

The internet didn’t exist when I was a kid/tween/teen.  I’m sure my life would have been different if it had, but I can’t say whether different means better or worse.

 

I typically find that most people with whom I share common interests like the same things for different reasons (both in person and online).

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22 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

It was also a era when “teaching kids before it’s time for them to learn” was very frowned-upon, so my mother made me hide

Spoiler

 

I'm guilty of the same thing in a way, now that I see you wording it that way.

 

My 6 year old is super mature for her age and we watch things together that many would consider inappropriate for a kid her age, but it's because she understands what's happening and asks questions which prove she is engaged and interested. For example, I let her watch the new BBC Les Miserables with me (after I watch each episode first of course to make sure there's no graphic sex or OTT violence or whatever). She loves it and loves learning about how life used to be for some people, and finds everything about that period in time really fascinating. She sees things that I think even adults wouldn't pick up on (like she knew the doll's hair was made from the girl's dead mother's hair, even though that wasn't explicitly stated at all) and asks me about them, like 'does the girl know that's her mother's hair on the doll?' and stuff. She also loves BBC Sherlock, The Hollow Crown series (especially the Henry VI and Richard III episodes) Marvel movies (even the scarier ones like venom), and paranormal documentaries (no idea why she's so into the last but she loves them). Plus she picks up on film-making techniques in all the shows we watch as she understands completely that everything is acted, and she'll theorize about things like whether they get the horses to just lie still, or whether they use fake horses, or CGI in a scene with dead horses (as one random example) and always tries to work out the how the cameras were angled in particularly involved scenes. She always knows when something is CGI and has opinions as to whether it's bad CGI or not, and always can identify prop swords in battle scenes because they jiggle a fair bit which is something I never even noticed myself until she pointed it out, haha.

 

ANYWAY, I find myself constantly saying to her 'make sure you don't talk to anyone at school about this stuff because you're not meant to know about it yet' which now that I think about it sounds really bad, haha. For example, Moriarty's suicide. She understands what happened and understands why he did it (and that it wasn't real, it was just acting), but she can't exactly go and tell anyone at school about a man shooting himself in the head because people might freak out a bit at that and not understand the reasons I let her watch that kind of thing (and only ever *with* me, so she can talk to me and ask me questions etc as the show is progressing). So anyway, that's a bit different than what you were talking about it, but the way you worded it made me think about how I ask her not to talk about certain things at school because by societal standards, she's certainly not meant to know about them at her age and people would make negative judgments about her knowing them :o 

 

 

(edit: spoilered because it's off topic and only relevant to what Ryn2 was saying, not the topic overall)

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@Evil and I met online, and as I do believe it has been clear from all of my posts here, my relationship with him is the most fulfilling, most rewarding relationship I've ever had. To address this point, James:

 

On 1/15/2019 at 6:11 AM, James121 said:

Serious as in, it’s unlikely you are actually going to see meet this person for some time (maybe months) but you consider yourself ‘off the market’ and happy in a relationship.

We've been exclusive for years and haven't met up, yet. I am "off the market" (I wouldn't be able to be on the market, regardless; I love the dude way too much to even have the capacity to be involved with anyone else), and it very much is a real relationship. My friends know about him, my family knows about him, my coworkers know I'm seeing someone. The only people who give me trouble about it are the guys in bars who insist I'm making him up as an excuse not to date them (as though I wouldn't be just as happy to break their little hearts some other way =D ).

We have plans to live together in the future, part of the delay is circumstance - our schedules simply won't allow it, at the moment. But he's worth it, the entire relationship has been worth it. Nothing about it is fake or somehow less meaningful than any of my other relationships have been (it's more meaningful than my marriage was, in fact).

 

On 1/14/2019 at 8:50 PM, anisotropic said:

(Like many androphilic Americans, an English accent is like kryptonite.)

Preach.

 

On 1/15/2019 at 3:18 AM, anisotropic said:

I think it helps a lot to have met online in a context where both people are members of a larger online community, it isn't about dating, and so you've started by making friends simply because you like talking to each other. With that context, it becomes outlandish to imagine someone fabricating an identity...

 

Ah, yes, maybe that's why we've been so good at communicating through our troubles!

This, too. Evil and I met playing a video game, we were both getting out of other relationships, neither of us were actively seeking anything. We had a lot in common right off the bat just based on our hobbies, and the more we talked the more we realized we had even more in common than that, and things evolved very naturally from there - just as they would have if we had met through a group of friends with mutual hobbies and interests in meat life (to use @Ficto.'s term =D).

 

I've had a lot of online friendships that I've maintained over the years - and they are my friends. Just because the places we hang out are virtual rather than physical doesn't make our interactions less meaningful; our jokes are still funny, we still make each other laugh, we still offer support, sympathy, advice, etc. as needed (and it's still good support, sympathy, advice, etc.). There are always complete dickwads, too, but that's life. You cast a wider net when you interact with people online, so you catch all types. The good ones are still really good, just like they would be if they were standing beside you.

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1 hour ago, Ficto. said:
  Reveal hidden contents

 

I'm guilty of the same thing in a way, now that I see you wording it that way.

 

My 6 year old is super mature for her age and we watch things together that many would consider inappropriate for a kid her age, but it's because she understands what's happening and asks questions which prove she is engaged and interested. For example, I let her watch the new BBC Les Miserables with me (after I watch each episode first of course to make sure there's no graphic sex or OTT violence or whatever). She loves it and loves learning about how life used to be for some people, and finds everything about that period in time really fascinating. She sees things that I think even adults wouldn't pick up on (like she knew the doll's hair was made from the girl's dead mother's hair, even though that wasn't explicitly stated at all) and asks me about them, like 'does the girl know that's her mother's hair on the doll?' and stuff. She also loves BBC Sherlock, The Hollow Crown series (especially the Henry VI and Richard III episodes) Marvel movies (even the scarier ones like venom), and paranormal documentaries (no idea why she's so into the last but she loves them). Plus she picks up on film-making techniques in all the shows we watch as she understands completely that everything is acted, and she'll theorize about things like whether they get the horses to just lie still, or whether they use fake horses, or CGI in a scene with dead horses (as one random example) and always tries to work out the how the cameras were angled in particularly involved scenes. She always knows when something is CGI and has opinions as to whether it's bad CGI or not, and always can identify prop swords in battle scenes because they jiggle a fair bit which is something I never even noticed myself until she pointed it out, haha.

 

ANYWAY, I find myself constantly saying to her 'make sure you don't talk to anyone at school about this stuff because you're not meant to know about it yet' which now that I think about it sounds really bad, haha. For example, Moriarty's suicide. She understands what happened and understands why he did it (and that it wasn't real, it was just acting), but she can't exactly go and tell anyone at school about a man shooting himself in the head because people might freak out a bit at that and not understand the reasons I let her watch that kind of thing (and only ever *with* me, so she can talk to me and ask me questions etc as the show is progressing). So anyway, that's a bit different than what you were talking about it, but the way you worded it made me think about how I ask her not to talk about certain things at school because by societal standards, she's certainly not meant to know about them at her age and people would make negative judgments about her knowing them :o 

 

 

(edit: spoilered because it's off topic and only relevant to what Ryn2 was saying, not the topic overall)

This was broader - it was considered wrong to teach kids to read before they got to school, for example, so “we” had to hide the fact that I figured it out on my own when I was two - but I can see how what you’re describing could also be an issue.

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45 minutes ago, Ceebs. said:

I wish all the best for the both of you in the future.

Thank you muchly!

 

Back at'cha. 😃

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4 minutes ago, Ceebs. said:

We're happy and I'm looking forward to the future very much.

Reported for vulgar content. 😖🤢🤮

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I am happy to see all the positive posts. Not to be a damper, but I will talk about the negative experience I had with an online relationship. It took a toll on my mental health when my ex threatened to kill themselves and they lived far away in a different country. Just like RL relationship can fuck you up, so can online relationship. I am spoilering the details, since ex is an active member of this community and I don't want to trigger them.

 

 

 


Just like you guys described, it was a meaningful relationship and I enjoyed it. Until I found out that they had been misleading me. Turns out, they were talking to other online people and were in love with them and were actively trying to pursue relationships with them. Turns out, they were multitasker and would chat with multiple people at the same time they were talking to me. Even worse, when I confronted them about the cheating, they threatened suicide. I had to pretend to be in relationship with them until they got the proper help and I suffered to the point of having mental breakdown. Typical story of abusive, manipulative relationship with a narcissistic person.
 

 

 

By the way, I think I just had bad luck, but strongly believe meaningful relationships/friendships are possible online.

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On 1/16/2019 at 9:21 PM, Ceebs. said:

@Chihiro I'm so sorry you had that experience. I'm no stranger to mental illness for sure, story of my life. It's really hard to live through firsthand of course, and often very hard to support someone you care about (family, partner, friend, whatever). The fact that your partner was messing around with multiple other people is... ugh.

 

Anyway. Nothing much to say but I'm sorry, and yeah, all stories aren't good ones. As is the case with relationship stories in general, no matter how or where the connection begins.

I understand mental illness is difficult to handle. Personally, I don't avoid dating people with mental illness as long as I know what type of illness they have. I have known healthy individuals being stuck with mental illness all of a sudden, so I don't discriminate.

 

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Agreed, there is always some risk involved.  The details (what exact risk, how it might manifest, how to best protect and extricate yourself) may vary with the communication medium but the risk is always there.

 

I wonder why part of why online doesn’t seem like it would work for me is that I’ve always had/built a “two-person” life.  I suppose if you aren’t - and don’t have plans to be - in a relationship when you choose your housing, furniture, living location, etc., you’re less likely to end up in situations where going it alone is really hard.

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4 minutes ago, Chihiro said:

Well, now I know better, and hopefully won't ever be in that situation. I guess, I was caught off guard and didn't know how to handle it.

Sometimes this is all you can hope for...  :(

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4 hours ago, Ficto. said:
  Reveal hidden contents

 

I'm guilty of the same thing in a way, now that I see you wording it that way.

 

My 6 year old is super mature for her age and we watch things together that many would consider inappropriate for a kid her age, but it's because she understands what's happening and asks questions which prove she is engaged and interested. For example, I let her watch the new BBC Les Miserables with me (after I watch each episode first of course to make sure there's no graphic sex or OTT violence or whatever). She loves it and loves learning about how life used to be for some people, and finds everything about that period in time really fascinating. She sees things that I think even adults wouldn't pick up on (like she knew the doll's hair was made from the girl's dead mother's hair, even though that wasn't explicitly stated at all) and asks me about them, like 'does the girl know that's her mother's hair on the doll?' and stuff. She also loves BBC Sherlock, The Hollow Crown series (especially the Henry VI and Richard III episodes) Marvel movies (even the scarier ones like venom), and paranormal documentaries (no idea why she's so into the last but she loves them). Plus she picks up on film-making techniques in all the shows we watch as she understands completely that everything is acted, and she'll theorize about things like whether they get the horses to just lie still, or whether they use fake horses, or CGI in a scene with dead horses (as one random example) and always tries to work out the how the cameras were angled in particularly involved scenes. She always knows when something is CGI and has opinions as to whether it's bad CGI or not, and always can identify prop swords in battle scenes because they jiggle a fair bit which is something I never even noticed myself until she pointed it out, haha.

 

ANYWAY, I find myself constantly saying to her 'make sure you don't talk to anyone at school about this stuff because you're not meant to know about it yet' which now that I think about it sounds really bad, haha. For example, Moriarty's suicide. She understands what happened and understands why he did it (and that it wasn't real, it was just acting), but she can't exactly go and tell anyone at school about a man shooting himself in the head because people might freak out a bit at that and not understand the reasons I let her watch that kind of thing (and only ever *with* me, so she can talk to me and ask me questions etc as the show is progressing). So anyway, that's a bit different than what you were talking about it, but the way you worded it made me think about how I ask her not to talk about certain things at school because by societal standards, she's certainly not meant to know about them at her age and people would make negative judgments about her knowing them :o 

 

 

(edit: spoilered because it's off topic and only relevant to what Ryn2 was saying, not the topic overall)

 

Spoiler

I go through the same thing with Little Miss. Well, me and her parents. She knows about a lot of stuff ahead of her age. Stuff if she talked about around other kids or people and it'd give the wrong impressions big time. In the small town/community environment bad impressions spread gossip like wildfire, which funny enough can have a surprising amount of repurcussions.

 

Shame about that.

 

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Just a reminder that people can treat you like garbage in person too. I'm still traumatized by my ex and there was never an online component and we were together for 8 years. At least online you're forced to communicate. 

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6 hours ago, ryn2 said:

Agreed, there is always some risk involved.  The details (what exact risk, how it might manifest, how to best protect and extricate yourself) may vary with the communication medium but the risk is always there.

To clarify, by “communication medium” I meant the full spectrum - online chat, message board, text, IM, video chat, telephone, paper letter, in person, etc.  Relationships have risks (and benefits) conducted via any of those means.

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6 hours ago, Chihiro said:

I am happy to see all the positive posts. Not to be a damper, but I will talk about the negative experience I had with an online relationship. It took a toll on my mental health when my ex threatened to kill themselves and they lived far away in a different country. Just like RL relationship can fuck you up, so can online relationship. I am spoilering the details, since ex is an active member of this community and I don't want to trigger them.

 

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Just like you guys described, it was a meaningful relationship and I enjoyed it. Until I found out that they had been misleading me. Turns out, they were talking to other online people and were in love with them and were actively trying to pursue relationships with them. Turns out, they were multitasker and would chat with multiple people at the same time they were talking to me. Even worse, when I confronted them about the cheating, they threatened suicide. I had to pretend to be in relationship with them until they got the proper help and I suffered to the point of having mental breakdown. Typical story of abusive, manipulative relationship with a narcissistic person.
 

 

 

By the way, I think I just had bad luck, but strongly believe meaningful relationships/friendships are possible onlinJe.

That sucks and it's a bit scary because it sounds like someone I had a 'relationship' with here on AVEN. He only finally showed me his true colours a month or so ago after having known him for 5 years. Yay, life :c

 

I also experienced being  screwed over in meat life (with my first boyfriend who was 14 years older than me), after I'd dedicated myself to him and was pretty much trapped in the relationship. He even gave me STIs as a result of his 'multi tasking' but was blaming them on me initially when I couldn't work out where they were coming from :c  it turned out when he said he was texting his mates, he'd actually be texting multiple girls at once WHILE IN THE ROOM WITH ME (my brothers girlfriend did that to him too!!).. the texts were about sex and all kinds of nasty stuff while sitting beside me on the damn couch or while in the bed with me or at the frikken dinner table. He had a kind of 'multi life' that he hid from me so effectively that he was able to convince me that I was crazy when I doubted him, even when other people TOLD me they'd seen him out with other women and stuff 😕 Some of the girls were even under-age it turns out (not little kids, but 14-15 year olds). :'c

 

I'm just trying to say that while being fucked over online does indeed suck so bad (and that's horrible that happened to you and I feel so sorry for the effects it had on you, that's awful... and I'm slightly scared it may have been the same person but almost certainly not) 😕 I want to say for others reading who might be thinking 'see!! That's exactly why you should avoid online relationships!'

that it happens just as easily in meat life too, and the effects can actually cause physical harm when you get STIs etc as a result of the cheating :c

 

 It's a people issue, an issue with the kinds of awful people that some of us were unfortunate enough to encounter. But I don't think it makes any difference whether one meets them online or offline. Those kinds of people will take advantage regardless of the capacity in which they meet us and believe me, they're sooooo good at hiding their behaviour that it can be happening right in front of your eyes on the damn couch beside you and you still don't see it Y_Y

 

7 minutes ago, Skullery Maid said:

Just a reminder that people can treat you like garbage in person too. I'm still traumatized by my ex and there was never an online component and we were together for 8 years. At least online you're forced to communicate. 

Yep that's how I feel too. At least you're literally forced to try to get to know each other online and you're (hopefully!!) not in any actual danger. You have the time and space to try to work out if they're truthful or not (my filtering process is pretty extreme nowadays) and if 6 months or a year down the line things are going well...then at that point you can consider physically meeting them or whatever. But I think I'd rather go through that process online now than risk it happening in person which is just so incredibly devastating. Urgh.

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8 minutes ago, Ficto. said:

It's a people issue, an issue with the kinds of awful people that some of us were unfortunate enough to encounter. But I don't think it makes any difference whether one meets them online or offline. Those kinds of people will take advantage regardless of the capacity in which they meet us

*nods*

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 Aaaand speaking of scary online stuff, I just got a message to my private Facebook account from someone who says they found me through OkCupid. But... I don't use my own name on Cupid (obviously) and my FB is set to completely private so no one can browse through my pics or anything to try to ascertain who I am. Are there any tech-savvy people who know how this person might have done this??? I'm kind of freaked out because I'm the only person in the whole world with my real name (hence why I don't use it on Cupid) and that would make me quite easy to find in real life if someone decided they wanted to come over here and stalk me 😕 How they fuck did this guy find me through OkCupid???? 

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