What do you think about falling in love online?

[yelloandgreen]

I feel a bit embarrassed with the thread title but wanted some opinions on how you can feel about someone you have never met "in the flesh".

We live quite long distance and got talking through work online and before I knew it we were talking every day. In that time we have clocked up hundreds of hours of the phone, endless emails and messages and fair bit of Facetime too.

I feel like I know him like the back of my hand, and he knows me the same way too and I "feel" as though my feelings for him are really quite real and that perhaps I even love him.

He is not my usual type by any stretch physically... I go for dark, he is blonde, I go for rugged, he is geeky but over the time of speaking to him he became the one voice I always wanted to hear, the one I could not imagine ever wanting to be away from and now I feel a little bit like ending up married to him is a fait accompli.

I feel a bit worried though that maybe without smelling someone or making love with them or cuddling up to them you might be missing a bit chunk of the puzzle - and although it is his mind and heart that has captured me, I wonder a bit about how much you can really feel.

I am a member of an online support group for something, with members all over the world and have been "chatting" online with 5 or 6 of those people for a couple of years and I can hand on heart say I count those people as truly some of my best friends, despite never meeting "face to face" so I do know "relationships" of value can definitely be built via a connection online but wonder how different it is with love.

Neither of us has problems getting a date in real life, neither of us is sad or lonely or desperate, I know he gets asked out a lot and I do too but we really just only want each other.

Yes there is very good potential for us "moving" so we live in the same place and once we meet we will look into that if all goes well. As for how he feels, well, he seems to feel that my heart / mind is what attracts him to me and he says that is what he has fallen for and while neither of us uses the words "love" or considers that we are in a relationship I think deep down we probably both believe this is going to be how we end up.

The time has come for me to actually meet him, will be happening in August and I could not be more terrified. From my end, I don't really care how his skin smells - it will smell like him - and I know I fancy the pants off him but I am worried a lot that he will feel let down by me in some way and I have avoided the big "meet" for so long with countless excuses because I feel a bit worried that he has a fantasy of me that I can't match up to.

Underneath all that, seeing him does not feel like meeting someone new, it feels more like finally seeing again someone I have missed forever so it's mixed feelings.

Does anyone have similar experiences? It has been almost four months since we first began to speak.

[madasa]

I met my partner online.
I met him in real life 10 days later as I was afraid if I didn't meet him soon I would build up all sorts of fantasies about how perfect he was and couldn't bear to be disappointed.
During those 10 days we spoke each night for about 4 hours, more than I think I spoke to my ex husband in 12 years.
Did I love him before I met him? My heart says yes and my head says don't be so bloody ridiculous.
The minute I clapped eyes on him I just thought 'There you are! I've been looking for you'
He moved in about a year after we met and we have now been together just over 9 years.
I was just about as cynical as you can get before I met him , and if I hadn't actually been there I wouldn't have believed it!
Good luck

[Somerville]

Hmm. I do think you can get to know someone really, really well without meeting them. well enough to fall in love? Probably, for some people.

But I also think it is much easier to present an idealised view of oneself. So I would be cautious, not just until you've met, but until you've seen each other's reactions to a variety of different RL situations.

It's also easy for someone who is a complete dickhead, or actually in a relationship already, to present themselves as normal and single. So be careful

[Spingroll16]

I met my hubby to be online, and now we are getting married in 3 months :) Best decision I ever made, for sure!

[yelloandgreen]

Thanks Madasa that was encouraging, I did almost do exactly that actually but in the end could not get the time off work for his visit so we rescheduled and now it feel like it has gone on so long I feel a pressure. As with your situation we just instantly went to speaking for 3 or 4 hours a night when we were home and I feel like I am in love but want to slap myself for feeling I am because my logical brain tells me that is not possible. Thanks Somerville, I think I have ruled out the Catfish angle but of course I am terrified really that he has an idealised view of me. I have tried very hard to present a warts and all version but I am still worried!

[loobyloo1234]

How long distance OP?

[yelloandgreen]

Not that far, a few hours.

We could have met a long time ago, I think I just was fine about meeting up for the first two weeks, but I realised I had really strong feelings for hi and was just scared for so many reasons.

Worried that someone was making me so happy and meeting up might spoil things.

Worried that he would see me and think I wasn't as pretty as he thought.

Worried that he might see me from behind and think my arse was massive.

Worried that I wasn't good enough for him somehow (I see him as about the best person in the world)

Worried that he just might generally be disappointed, so I have been a bit of a coward and put a lot of obstacles in the way of him trying to see me so I am a bit worried really and don't want to let that spoil things!

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

I think it's possible to form a strong connection with someone you've never met, but I don't think it's real to "fall in love" with them UNTIL you've met them. It's possible that the strong connection you form would create a good basis for the falling in love - but a completely online relationship, no.

Hope you get to meet him soon and find out.

[Somerville]

I can't help but feel that your worries and insecurities about meeting him are troubling. More troubling than the fact that you haven't actually met yet, IYSWIM.

I'm not trying to be unkind here. I hope it works out for you.

[HormonalHeap]

I met my dh online and my head and heart told me this was it. Met him after a couple of months and he was like I imagined, BUT there is no way you can know everything about someone until you see for yourself how he reacts when things go wrong for him/different scenarios.

As an example, one of the things I loved about dh before I met him was that he was an incredible dad who would always go the extra mile for his kids. I could not have known though, that when those kids rejected me because they did not want to share their dad with me and my children, that he would let them walk all over him, treating him very badly.

I believe you only really know someone after years of living with them and dealing with life's knocks together. Gook luck!

[laurenwiltxx]

My sister met her online boyfriend, from another country and now they're married with baby on the way and couldn't be happier

[loobyloo1234]

If it’s only a few hours OP, can you not meet up sooner?

I can’t see why it won’t work – I hope it does I just don’t think you can say for sure if it’s true love until you meet. Good luck to you though, fingers crossed it is

[SeaEagleFeather]

I feel like I know him like the back of my hand, and he knows me the same way too and I "feel" as though my feelings for him are really quite real and that perhaps I even love him.

actually you don't. There are facets to him you just do not know and won't .... Which is just like anyone meeting in a bar!

I think it'd be wise to observe him a while. What's he like in an argument? Does he blame, does he try to sort things out, does he get mean? How does he regard other people, does he speak down about some? (the on line version of the waitress test!) You can sometimes see that stuff more easily face to face than online. Sometimes. People can hide what they are.

I think now that regarding any relationship, try to get a good idea of his underlying character no matter how nice his personality is.

[HermioneJeanGranger]

I'm dating someone I met online. But I met him as soon as possible. I think it's really dangerous to spend hours talking to someone by text/online without meeting them in person. You build up all sorts of ideas in your head and I think it's really important to make sure that a) he is who he says he is, and b) you have that same connection in real life.

Texts/e-mails are just words on a screen and even speaking on the phone isn't the same as talking in real life. What's he like after a bad day? Is he grumpy? How does he treat people in the street, or waitresses in cafes? What's he like when he's drunk? How does he handle an argument?

These are all things you can't know about someone until you've met them in person. You can of course fall in love with people you meet on the internet but you need to meet them in person as well. I met the guy I'm seeing about a month after we started talking - it would have been sooner but I was relocating to his area for work so I needed to get moved in before I had the chance to meet him.

Good luck, though!

[Moistly]

I remembered my dh from school but hadn't ever spoken to him in my life. Just remembered his face and name. When we were in our late twenties he added me on fb. I thought "ah yes, remember him" and that was it. He started to message me and ask what I was up to etc. After a few weeks we were chatting on MSN (!) literally all through the night. I remember looking through his fb photos thinking " I'm falling for this guy..."
Felt just like you Op - felt I knew him through and through. He told me we were going to get married and have children, and that he'd never even thought of doing any of that stuff with anyone else before, ever. I believed him but felt just as wary as you!
We met up shortly after that and instantly felt comfortable and right together. We are now married with a daughter

It hasn't been plain sailing of course - living together, bringing up a child and getting to know each other in true nitty gritty style is certainly less rose tinted ! We have had very hard times but still want to be together.

So yes Op, I believe you when you say you know him and are in love with him. When you meet up it will be really lovely.

[MrsMarsch]

I'm marrying the guy I met online in 2 weeks and I'm 15 weeks pregnant, the stigma of online dating has all but disappeared :)

[Bonkerz]

Me and my husband met online. We lived 200 miles apart at the time. We chatted for 2 months before he traveled to meet me.
It was a bit of a whirlwind really because 4 months later I moved in with him and within the year we were married. That was 14 years ago now and still together!

[yelloandgreen]

When I strip it back, I admit I have been scared in general about loving someone, relying on them or being with someone I cared about enough that it would hurt me if they left. I have had a lot of relationships the past 5 years, but none where I felt truly vulnerable to the man. All this comes off the back of my fiance running off with someone else a few years ago in a way that shook me to the core. I feel a little bit scared to let myself just go with it and take it as it is. He knows this, he thinks I overthink and that sometimes people just fit together and he's a very calm and logical person who helps to balance me.

I am trying not to worry, I realise I made the pressure worse by delaying things.

In a sense this time has given me the objectivity (before hormones got involved) to really objectively look at him and I think he is pretty much the best person I have ever come across and can't believe I was so lucky to find someone that great and have them pick me.

He's got a lot of flaws like everyone else, but I seem to understand them and they work well for me as flaws which I find a little amusing / endearing rather than grim. He's a good man, a good Dad, a good friend. He has so many qualities about him that just make me feel really great about life, the world, myself, him. I could talk to him every day forever and never get sick of him.

I was completely put off the idea of marriage and "forever", but with him I can imagine it and it feels easy - easy like breathing feels easy - no effort required - almost as if he was always there!

I think that just feels like an awful lot of hope and investment and that's a bit scary.

I questioned myself so deeply for so long after what fiance did, felt there must be something wrong with me for someone I loved and never did anything to to treat me so shit and it's been a long road to pull myself out of that and feel happy alone, happy being me again.

[yelloandgreen]

I know I could meet him sooner, I could lie and give the various reasons (I am busy with work!, I have so and so coming to stay!) but it is all bollocks. I have put it off out of being shit scared really. I need to get a grip.

As for all the bits about knowing him, I suppose the strangest part is that we have been through a fair amount of that already, I know how he treats people, I know what his friends think of him (spoken to them), I know about how he is with his family, I know about how he is with his children, I know what he is like in an argument (we have had one) and we've fallen out twice an learned a lot about each other from it.

It's not a lot like my ex fiance, we seem to talk about things more. He says nice things to me but they just seem more authentic. He doesn't ask me for naked photos but makes it clear he wants to see me naked. He makes it clear his future has me in it and wants to know what I think about his work, his kids, his decisions and he seems to think I am so great.

I have my flaws, really big glaring ones that I feel insecure (fiance gave these as reasons of why he slept with my friend) but this man seems to actually like my flaws, which he says he finds very endearing. He just has a very good effect on me without it feeling fake or like he is flattering me.

I know I need to grow a pair and stop being such a dick.

I really, really, really hope it turns out like some of the stories above. I have met so many shabby men, and it would just be so great to have one like this!

Craziest part of all he seems to be a bit scared too. He says he is worried I might be too good for him, too pretty, too young (only 5 years younger but he says he looks shit compared to me) so maybe both of us share the same worries. He is much more assured than me though. Much more logical!

[Somerville]

Get on and meet him then.

Quickly.

Honestly, life can be short. If you and he are meant to be, then get on with it and have as much time together as possible.

If the feelings aren't there when you meet then yes, you'll feel shit. But you'll feel worse the longer this has gone on, and the more emotionally invested you are.

[LoserDust]

Meet up sooner. Why put it off, it has to happen one day if you want the relationship to progress any further.

I do believe people can and do fall in love online. Whether the 'online' persona you fall in love with is the real them - you can't know until you meet each other. You just can't. So get it done

[JuliannalovesCliveBixby]

I met my husband online and felt like I loved him before we met. Then we met and my feelings waned a bit while his got stronger. Then we spent more real time together and I proper fell in love with him. So it can work out. You don't know if you don't try. but do your homework on him, don't be naive and if you discover he's lied about who he is after you meet him, like his age or marital status or anything, run like the bloody wind

[yelloandgreen]

You're all helping a lot filling me with a bit of confidence here, thank you.

All my fingers and toes crossed for a story like yours!

[HermioneJeanGranger]

You need to meet him OP.

The longer your put it off, the harder and more scary it will be. You have all these wonderful ideas in your head about him, but until you go out and meet him, they're just words on a screen. You really don't know who he is - you might think you do, but until you meet IRL and talk in person, it's all a fantasy.

I've had great connections with people online (both friends and potential boyfriends), and met up with them and it's been a bit "meh". Not that they weren't lovely people, but there was no chemistry or spark and it just all fell a bit flat.

I think the danger is the longer you speak to him online, the more you'll convince yourself that he's "the one", but you really don't know him. You could meet and he could be "the one", but likewise his mannerisms might annoy the crap out of you.

Please meet him ASAP before you get in any deeper.

[Minime85]

Everything you said in your 5th paragraph.

Not that I don't think it can work but you need to meet. Seriously need to meet.