Online Relationships

The age of technology has grown with my generation. I very vaguely remember a time when I didn't have internet. And especially within the last couple of years, online social media such as Facebook have really blown up and become popular. But are relationships that are met and made solely online equivalent to relationships offline? It's one thing if you talk to an old friend online. You know them, your relationship was founded off of a face-to-face meeting. But talking to someone you met online is different. Talking online is the only connection you have to that person. You may not know what they look like, sound like, or even if they're who they say they are.

A family friend of ours met someone on Facebook and they started dating. I think during the whole time they dated they saw each other in person maybe three or four times, however they talked on the phone every night. They were together for six months, and then they got engaged. Shortly after getting engaged, our friend called this guy and a woman answered the phone. They compared notes and found out that he was engaged to them both and didn't tell either of them about the other one. Needless to say that relationship ended quick. Then she found someone else, also on Facebook, and after dating for several months they got married just a couple of weeks ago. Not only do her friends not have a lot of faith in this relationship because it was so fast, but also because she met him on a Facebook game called Vampire Wars or something. To me, a relationship that was founded online is usually superficial and takes a lot of work offline for it to mean anything more than that, especially a romantic relationship.

Another thing about online friends is that you tend to care less about them. Sure they're a stranger to vent to, share an interest with, or just to talk whenever you're bored, but because you don't see them face-to-face it's almost like they're imaginary and therefore insignificant. For all you know, it could be a computer-generated message that you're having an online relationship with.