AIBU in thinking you can fall in love with someone you’ve met online?

[JosieMay1970]

Been talking to a man online for a while, around 6 weeks, now I have intense emotions towards him, he messages me all the time, we send photos to each other throughout the day, our dinner, at work etc and today I realised I care for him and the thought of him not being in my life hurts me.

do you think even though we haven’t met, I could actually be in love with him?

Tell us about this man. Who is he? How old is he? What does he do for a living? Are you sure he’s not lovebombing you? Has he asked you for any money - maybe for a surgery or a sick mother?

You can’t be in love but you can be infatuated. I found myself in a similar ’penpal’ situation for six months - I thought he was amazing. When we met he was just weird. What was funny in messages came across as sneery and mean in real life - very Kenneth Williams - and I got the ick almost immediately.

You are certainly in love @JosieMay1970 but you are in love with a fictional person that is a combination of the carefully curated information that this man has given you (some of which will be false or misinterpreted) and your own fantasies filling in the gaps (a lot of which will be false).

Unfortunately this means the relationship is probably doomed because the real Human Being will never be quite as good as the fantasy you initially fell in love with.

It's easy to make this mistake, and it's important when meeting people online to guard your heart until you know them in real life, to avoid this exact circumstance.

Lots of people saying you can't be in love but you can be infatuated.

I'd say you can't he in love but you can be attached. And that isn't necessarily healthy. And certainly not in this case.

He lives 10 hours away
What you know of him is only what he is allowing you to see/know. You don't actually know him at all.

And, as for not knowing what you'd do without him in your life, what were you doing 7 weeks ago?

Answer that question (to yourself, not on here unless you want to!) and you may find the answer as to why you you have become attached so quickly - people who have happy and fulfilled lives are rarely people who find themselves feeling in love with a stranger online.

No, and unless there’s a decent reason I’d be wondering why there’d be no attempt to meet in person after 6 weeks of chatting. When I was OL dating I’d give it a week, at the very most, before I concluded it wasn’t going anywhere.

You’ve fell in love with the idea of him. Limerence is not love.

The fact that he says he’s 10 hours away rings alarm bells for me. He knows meeting up in the flesh is almost impossible. I think he’s a romance scammer and will soon be asking you for money.

YABU. This person is almost certainly not who you think they are.

Look up yahoo boys in Nigeria.

As others have said. Limerence, not love.

After 6 weeks why haven't you met?

So...how would you expect this to progress into a meaningful relationship where you spend time together and get to know eachother?

If I felt as you do, I would be asking myself some questions about why I would prefer a digital romance to a real one. Are you scared of emotional or physical intimacy? Are you not willing to alter your life to accommodate a real person into it?

Is this onlineromance blocking you from getting what you think you want from love e.g. marriage or living together, children etc? If so you need to see it for what it is.

If not... why not get an AI boyfriend who you can tailor make to be the ideal online lover?

You think you’re in love but until you meet you won’t really know. I had a message from an old gaming friend of mine. She is in America so was an effort to game together. The msg was a photo of her and a guy, I introduced them as got them in to the same raid team. They had been hanging out online gaming together. They met up a few months ago and are now a couple. He is In England.

I know a few couples who have met online gaming. One of them is a friend in real life, He married his GF this year and now begins the long process of her trying to join him in the UK, she is an American. These people met through a love of a shared hobby though. I know MN positively looks done its judgemental nose at gaming. These relationships develop organically though, it just happens to be online. I went to a clan meet up this year and met people I have gamed with for years,

I think the trouble is you won't know him until you've met him a couple of times. The only things you know about him are what he's told you, so he'll be presenting this idealic version of himself and you have no idea what the truth is.

Coincidentally, with a connecting flight it would take 10 hours to get to….. Nigeria.

No, it’s not possible to fall in love with someone you’ve never met in person.

What you’re feeling is list, infatuation and excitement of what could possibly be, and that’s pretty intoxicating so a lot of people mistake it for love, but true, deep love is something more complicated and takes years to truly build.

I would also say as well that you don’t fully know a person until you live with them.

On another note, be careful when it comes to speaking to people online. Maybe I’m a bit of cynic because I’ve watched too much Catfish and romance scam shows, but you need to be really diligent with this stuff.

I don't think you can know that you love him yet and I highly recommend that you meet him before you decide

I met my husband online - my friends knew him and thought we would get on well. A few weeks of talking and it seemed like we did gel. We enjoyed talking to each other.

We met up and the chemistry was 100% there.

To meet he had to cross the irish sea so we had a two week long date (wouldn't recommend this if it wasn't a case of a friend knowing him well enough to believe he was trustworthy - they were friends for 3 years so I figured they wouldn't let me meet a mass murderer) and the rest is history. If you can live somebody for two weeks the first time you meet them then it's a good sign. But for you I would stay in a travelodge for a weekend and meet him for a few short dates until you trust him. If the chemistry is still there then great, if not move on.

I don't think long distance online relationships work long term. My husband and I moved in together after 2 long visits and 6 months talking. We were both young with no responsibilities or ties so were able to be flexible that way. We spent the first year of our relationship being migratory and moving and working all over the place. When you have ties and responsibilities it is harder to make these things work, but still possible.

You’re in love with the idea of him.
You haven’t met. 🤷‍♀️

If you’re talking about the same channel (I forget the name), did you watch the one with the woman who divorced her poor husband because she believed she was in a relationship with Elon Musk? 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don’t see how you can genuinely be in love tbh.

I would also be wary as I have done a lot of online dating over the years and you can have a great connection online but when you meet it can be completely different. Several times I have not been attracted to someone on sight.

I agree with previous posters and have been there myself in my early 20s. It is a form limerence: like a crush, but much stronger and with deep feelings of concern over being abandoned/the connection being lost.

You get these little hits of dopamine throughout the day: someone is thinking of you, someone wants to make you smile, you want to make them smile too, you are sharing this intense connection and it is available from the little handheld computer we are all glued to. The messages are composed, the photos possibly taken and retaken before sharing. Cultivated and curated. No real disappointment, no difficult logistics, no in-person quirks to drive you bonkers.
It is all very easy, very exciting, and very comfortable.
Totally understandable, but not love, no.

People can meet online initially, then meet in person, then go on to have wonderful relationships. Those people don’t tend to think they’ve fallen in love after 6 weeks when they haven’t even met each other yet, though. Have you spoken on the phone, or FaceTimed, or is this ‘relationship’ all happening through messages?

As you’re feeling such intense emotions already (especially about an online stranger) if you were my friend I’d worry you were being lovebombed - and people who lovebomb rarely have good intentions! You don’t know this person at the moment, so you can only be in love with the idea you’ve created of them. It’s very easy to present a cultivated image online and make people think you’re something you’re not - who they are in reality might be very different to what you’ve been led to believe.

I’d suggest watching some documentaries about romance scammers/catfishing, like ‘Sweet Bobby’ on Netflix. Scams like this can be convincing, and even incredibly intelligent, capable women have been duped in this way by people with unpleasant motives.

I think you can be emotionally in love with someone you’ve never met but true love only comes through spending time with someone and those shared experiences and physical contact.
DH and I met online during one of the Covid lockdowns and it was 6 weeks before we could meet in person. We exchanged hundreds if not thousands of messages in that time as well as photos and video chatted daily for the last 4 weeks.
I would say I was intellectually and emotionally in love with him before we met but was aware that even though I felt a strong physical attraction to him via photos and video chat we needed to meet in person to be sure of that. I still remember walking across the car park and catching sight of him and having a fizz pop in my stomach.

Anything online can be very addictive, and I think you can become addicted to the online romance rather than actually falling in love with the person. . I get it, I've been there. I ended up meeting this guy I thought I'd fallen in love with, and it was lovely but in some ways he felt like a stranger despite us video calling every day. I think we both realised in the end that it wasn't that we couldn't live without each other but we were addicted to the messaging/video calling. It was a long distance relationship and eventually fizzled out.

I didn't see that one but it sounds similar. Did she send money or store vouchers to him because for some reason he couldn't access his billions? There was one who was convinced she was in a relationship with Johnny Depp and one guy who left his really nice wife for a model who turned out to be a guy in Nigeria using stolen photos. It is addictive viewing! I feel sorry for the ones who have just suffered from a bereavement or divorce but the ones who leave their partners for someone they have never met I have less sympathy for.

Sure. In the same way Im in love with Colin Firth, based on the representations of him I see in the media and his films. With respect, grow up.

Of course not.