Saturday, December 29, 2007

iRelationship

arlan asked me to write about internet dating. i told her that i'd thought about it, but that i wasn't sure i'd have enough to say and that it wasn't a subject which particularly inspired me to write. she said that i could preface the whole thing by mentioning that she was curious to see what i had to say on the subject, and after some explanation from me (to her), we agreed that it would go something like this...

arlan: so, sarah, what are your thoughts on internet dating? do you feel that it's a valid way to meet someone? is it something you've found success with? do you think you can carry on a relationship mostly/solely through the internet? do you think it's better to meet people outside of the internet, and either way, do you feel that it makes for a different type of relationship if it's started out one way or the other?

me: i mean, whatever works.

so. that was sort of my problem. i've met people in "real" life who i ended up dating, and i've also met people online. some of my friends have met people online; others through friends or maybe out at a bar or a party or something. and really, in this day and age, i don't think it makes much difference. just about everyone's got access to the internet in some way, and it's not weird or scary anymore to meet friends or potential dating partners on myspace, or facebook, or a dating site, or even, like, craigslist. or through blogs. or message boards. anyway, you get the idea.

so far, in my experience, my best relationship to date is my current one and i met him on the internet. it wasn't a drawn out internet thing; we met days after the initial messages that we sent to each other and our primary contact since has been in person and on the phone, and we email each other while he's at work and things like that. he lives like 15 minutes away from me. a couple of guys i met on the internet were total psychos; a couple were nice guys but we never got beyond one or two dates. i met my last boyfriend at work. i met one guy i dated at a bar.

as far as dating exclusively online, or carrying on a relationship mostly through use of the internet...i don't know. i don't have much of an opinion about it because i've never done it. i honestly feel that whatever works for you, works. and even though i don't care what anyone thinks, it is nice that we've finally reached a time when saying that you met someone online is...normal. acceptable. i wouldn't have most of my good friends if not for the internet.

...what do youguys think?

2 comments:

Alix! said...

I met R through a friend I met on LJ, and she only knew him through LJ too.
And then obviously I met M through LJ too haha. And my friend has met a couple people through Facebook and MySpace. I don't find anything wrong with it in this day and age. I've been meeting people from the internet since I first got it, though of course then it was just meeting friends and people who had similar interests, mostly musical taste since I didn't share mine with anyone in high school. And then the first person I met through the internet to date and see if there was anything more to just friendship... well I should be sleeping over his house tonight, haha.
Though I don't know about relationships that are internet-only as far as meeting someone in another state or who lives hours away from you and mostly keeping the relationship online. I really don't think that works at all. You can really connect, but just because you can connect in every level online doesn't mean you can tolerate the person in real life and handle their real-life quirks and such. And they could be ugly, or be terrible at sex, and while you want to be the bigger person and say that doesn't matter, it usually plays a large part in things.


ANYWAY I RAMBLED I HOPE YOU LIKED IT.

arlan said...

ya know, whatever works.

;-)

and also, i obviously met all of my 3 girlfriends online (sort of) before meeting them in person. and they all lasted 2 years or more. and they were all great people. i liked that i could get to know them a lot more before we had the pressure of impressing each other completely based on our looks. when you meet someone in person first, you might be infatuated cause theyre hot (happens to me every day) but then you start talkin to them and theyre a mess. this way you have a bit of an advantage i think.

but uh...member that time when she was all like "my booooo!!!" and i was like..."oh no."

member dat?