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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think it's not a proper relationship if you've never met?

62 replies

Endlessmusings · 05/04/2017 15:35

Talking about relationships at work and one guy said he'd been with his partner for 8 years. I was surprised by that as he's 22. Turns out he met his gf online and didn't physically meet for 3 years.

I know you can have feelings for someone but surely in a relationship you need to physically be with that person? Not just sex, but little things like having dinner together, going for a walk, sharing a bed etc

OP posts:

SunnyLikeThursday · 05/04/2017 16:20

I think it probably doesn't matter to be long distance, thought it does probably help to have met.

It seems to me that during the war, when lots of married soldiers were away for long periods, those people were still very much in relationships and no one would have doubted that.

Also there are people who are in arranged marriages who probably consider that they are in a relationship as soon as it is arranged.

I suppose relationships can be very flexible things in all sorts of circumstances, and it is probably up to the people themselves to determine what counts as being in a relationship.

Lemonnaise · 05/04/2017 16:25

No my whole life revolves around this.

That made me laugh OP, haha - good comeback.

Bobbins43 · 05/04/2017 16:25

My first proper relationship (as I call it) was online. We've still not met but I consider him my first love. We're not together any more but still in touch. I still call it a relationship (even though there were many issues!).

Could it be that what we term as a relationship is evolving? You can Skype, FaceTime, call, text and all the rest so you can stay more in touch with someone who isn't physically with you sometimes than you talk to someone who is

MessiIsTheBest · 05/04/2017 16:25

Well I'd known my now-exh for a year online before we physically met I got a lot of stick from other people who didn't take us seriously and that caused offence. This age of the internet and cheap flights presumably means more and more people are gonna meet partners from out their own area and abroad

OP I understand why you didn't think you were in a relationship but in my case I certainly did, so guess everyone's experience is different for them

Original poster

Endlessmusings · 05/04/2017 16:26

But we're not talking about long distance relationships Sunny.

OP posts:

floraeasy · 05/04/2017 16:28

It seems to me that during the war, when lots of married soldiers were away for long periods, those people were still very much in relationships and no one would have doubted that

Yes!

Furthermore, I have heard of pen-pals getting to know each other and slowly falling in love. The initial pen-pals thing was not with the intention of falling in love.

A meeting of minds, perhaps?

Lemonnaise · 05/04/2017 16:30

Bobbins43. How can you have a romantic relationship with someone who you've never even kissed or touched? Genuine question, fully prepared to be told I'm wrong.

WateryTart · 05/04/2017 16:31

YANBU.

It can't be a relationship if you've never met. They could be lying, fake photos, be married, be older/younger.

bogofeternalstench · 05/04/2017 16:41

I met my husband online. We were together for just over a year before we met, because he was in the USA and neither of us could afford flights. We then spent another year apart before he moved here. We've now been married nearly 3 years.

I would say our relationship was most defnintely a proper relationship before we met, but it was a different kind of relationship than it is now. It's not easy. Yes, on one hand you don't have the day to day mundanity of living together, but you also have to deal with the uncertainty of long distance contact. Obviously Skype makes it easier but it's still hard. But also all that talking (since that's all you can do really) means that once you meet the relationship has a solid foundation already.

Waterytart - not heard of Skype? Surely these days nobody conducts a relationship like ours without it? So you know what they look like and if they look the age they're claiming to be. Yes, they could be married/hiding something else but then so could someone you date from the next town.

CheeseQueen · 05/04/2017 16:45

There was a really interesting session I caught on Loose Women this afternoon about "catfishing" and this thread has just reminded me.
Basically there's been cases where someone has been "in a relationship" with someone they've met online for years but never actually met.
It transpired the person they thought they loved wasn't the person at all - it had all been fake photos stolen off the internet and some poor guy with his identity taken.
Horrible for him, horrible for the person who finds out that their boyfriend doesn't exist - they've been in love with an image all along.
So no, I don't think you can always be in an exclusive online relationship with someone you've never actually met, as how do you really know who you're talking to online? It could be anybody.

x246 · 05/04/2017 16:55

I don't think it can be truly a real relationship until you've met somebody and established you're both on the same page purely because the Internet isn't real for a lot of people.

I had a friend. We were in touch nearly every day for five years. We Skyped. We exchanged Christmas and birthday gifts. One day, she dropped me. No falling out. No explanation. Deleted from social media and blocked on the site we met on. Never heard from her again. To me, it was a real friendship. To her, it was obviously something to kill time until she got bored of me.

I think it's fine to count the online time as part of the relationship once you're properly together though.

Lemonnaise · 05/04/2017 16:55

bogof....I met my DP online but our relationship didn't start til the day we met in real-life. Before that I don't consider that we were in a relationship.

floraeasy · 05/04/2017 16:56

Good point, Cheese - I think this is where Skype and stuff needs to be used, to make sure it's all genuine.

On the other hand, it always amazes me how little people know their partners even in a conventional relationship. Just look at the threads here on MN!

I, too, have had my world turned upside down by someone I was physically with from the start - turned out I knew nothing at all.

Blerg · 05/04/2017 17:09

Interesting. I read somewhere smell is important to attraction and wonder whether people who fall in love online ever meet and justbthink someone smells 'wrong'.

I am probably a bit old fashioned but I'd tend to agree it isn't a relationship in the conventional sense.

BounceBounceSplishSplash · 05/04/2017 17:15

I've seen too many episodes of Catfish to think that you can be in a relationship with someone who you met OL but have never met in RL.

IAmTheWorwax · 05/04/2017 17:25

Yanbu

I don't think you really put your true self across online, it's much easier to be who you'd rather be.

corythatwas · 05/04/2017 17:26

"I think if you then meet up and things continue, it's fine to consider the first part of the relationship "part" of it."

This. My db met his wife online. Their (very happy) relationship is the sum total of all the time they have spent getting to know each other whether online or, at a later date, in person. It has all added to what their relationship is now.

I have spent a lot of time researching medieval letters and one thing that stands out very clearly is how much friendships with people you had never met meant to the writers. A modern "relationship" is a kind of combo between a sexual/procreational relationship and an oldfashioned friendship. So I suppose no reason you couldn't do the friendship bit by letter. People always did.

Of course you may find out when you do meet up that the person you thought you knew never existed. But that is a risk you take. And tbh that can happen even if you have met in the flesh: yes, you may know that a dark-haired man in his mid-thirties exists but be totally deceived about his personality and circumstances. I know people who have found out years later that the person they were supposedly happily married to had a second family elsewhere.

x246 · 05/04/2017 17:35

Catfishes are almost always obviously dodgy though. They always refuse to video chat and half of them won't even talk on the phone, and some of the excuses that some of them come up with to explain why they have no technology are ridiculous.

Mintychoc1 · 05/04/2017 17:36

well by definition a "relationship" is platonic if you haven't physically met. So i would call it a friendship, because in this context the work "relationship" implies a coupling. And if it was online, I'd call it an online friendship.

If you were friends with someone in RL for 3 years, then started dating them, and 5 years later you were still a couple, would you say you'd been in a relationship for 8 years? I'd say 5 years, but 3 years as friends before that.

None of it matters of course, any more than most other AIBUs!!

CotswoldStrife · 05/04/2017 17:47

I agree that the scammers/catfishes are obviously dodgy from the start, but my friend will not be told . Really obvious flaws in the story from the get-go!

MatildaTheCat · 05/04/2017 17:50

This chap was only 14 when he met his gf online so I can see how he regarded her as his girlfriend even though they'd never physically met. He probably hadn't had a gf before and presumably used Skype or similar. They may have spend hundreds of hours gazing at each other chatting etc so it would have felt very real.

No doubt her now recognises the difference but doesn't wish to disregard the first three years of their relationship.

The Internet has evolved so fast it has redefined certain areas of life more quickly than we can keep up with. Especially older persons like myself who managed to meet a man, date and get married all without even a mobile phone.

Bluntness100 · 05/04/2017 18:10

I don't know why you need to judge. What difference does it make? I can see why if he's only 22 , been physically with his parents for 5 years since he was 17 and was on an online relationship with her between 14 and 17 they would say 8 years. However it's irrelevant, I am unsure as said why uou need to judge them. What difference does it make to you if he'd been with her five or eight years, as it's clearly important enough for uou to start a thread on.

Bluntness100 · 05/04/2017 18:11

Partner not parents!

redjoker · 05/04/2017 18:15

For me the online 3 years of our relationship was in fact a relationship. And at the time I was very offeneed if people tried to tell me otherwise. We were totally committed to each other and had a huge emotional bond. Well I even loved him before I 'met' him.

Relationships take different forms. I think to say 'proper' or not is not something you can judge in a blanket manner and really depends on the people.

On the other hand I met my current partner on the Internet. Spoke for 7 months before meeting (he was in a bunker in Scotland so no chance to meet) and I even though we were only with each other I didn't class it a relationship until we met.

EddieHitler · 05/04/2017 18:21

DS1 met his girlfriend online and they both definitely considered it a real relationship from the day it started. They didn't meet for a few months as they live in different countries, but their anniversary is on the day he asked her out, not on the day they physically met.

They Skype and they have mutual friends irl so there were no worries about them not being who they said they were. They still go long periods between seeing each other but everyone considers their relationship just as real as if they'd met in the local pub.

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