Can you love someone you've never even met?

[Ghosted2019]

Not me but a friend of mine. She has met a man online and they have been talking for about 6 weeks. They haven't met yet due to work commitments and the fact they live in different cities but they have spoke on the phone and on Skype.

She told me that she has fallen in love with him. I don't think that's possible due to the short amount of time and that she hasn't met him in person, although I haven't said this to her but I did tell her I'm worried she's moving too fast. Can you really fall in love with someone just by talking online?

No, she's fallen for his online persona

No it is infatuation. He could have the worst breath or BO in the world & you won’t onow because you can’t smell him. They could be sexually incompatible. You can’t know for sure until you see them face to face. She is I love with the idea of him & comforted by his companionship but that’s it.

She sounds crackers.

To fall in love after 6 weeks is ridiculous and add in to the mix, someone she’s never met, is just preposterous

I kind of disagree. I think if they'd only messaged i would agree, but Skype isn't too dissimilar to meeting face to face really. It's a pretty good way of getting to know someone quite well.

I also think it's possible to start falling in love this quickly, especially if they're talking really regularly.

Either way, you need to be supportive of the relationship. If he's not all she thinks he is, she'll need a shoulder to cry on when it breaks down.

She's in love with her idea of him. Probably doomed, but it is possible he'll turn out to be that great or better in real life.

You can be in love with the idea, Skype means they are getting to know each other though. I think it takes time, many months to truly fall in love but you can lust and be infatuated for sure

No, it takes more than a few months even if you know them in person. Anything described as love so early on is Just lust/infatuation.

She’s allowed to feel the way she does and call those feelings whatever she chooses. However, if ‘being in love’ causes her to be reckless, than yes you should tell her.

I'd be massively sceptical, but maybe I'm a cynic.

I don't think you can love someone you've never met. I think you can feel very strongly that you COULD have something special with that person , but no more than that.

As a pp has said , so much is dependent on the way someone smells , their mannerisms etc.

I spoke with my now husband for weeks before we met , and whilst I looked forward to our chats and was excited to receive his messages I also understood that the smallest thing would have put me off until I really knew him.

She loves the parts he’s been willing to show her (no pun intended, hopefully that’s not what the Skype is for).

Of course you can’t love someone you don’t know.

I don't think you can fall in love with someone after 6 weeks at all.

You can fall in deep lust/infatuation that might later morph into love, but it's not love at that stage. You don't even really know a person then, and don't know them until you see them in a range of different situations and how they handle a range of emotions as well as different times of the day and so on. You just can't have that after 6 weeks.

Of course not. You've seen them online and on skype and your imagination just fills in the rest with what you want it to be.

Even on skype, you have no idea who they are. Just what they have shown you at that particular time.

You don't know how they walk, how they interact with others, how they smell, or anything really except what you are seeing on the screen at that moment.

My exH met some overseas women online and claimed they were in love after a week. It's been 2 years and they still haven't met. It's embarrassingly stupid at this point.

You can love an idea, a notion.

But you can't love a reality that isn't there.

You cant love someone you havent met; its an infatuation of the idea of him. Hope he lives up to her expectations when she does meet him...

No. No you can't.

No.

Skype isn't too dissimilar to meeting face to face really

It's completely dissimilar. Generally speaking, if you can't smell or touch them, there's no way to have bonded with them in the way we usually mean the word "love".

She can be fixated on or obsessed with what she imagines this person is like in the flesh, but actual attachment is something that comes from physical proximity.

Ni

Sorry, i meant "no", but having had a mostly e-relationship with an avoidant man a few years ago, you can need the conmunication to continue.

Well I'd say I fell in love with dh by 6 weeks. But we spent the first night together and it went pretty full on from there.

I agree with pp that you need to physically be near the person for you to know for sure though.

I have a friend who has done this more than once. Months of messaging to a girl overseas. Eventually she announced they were engaged and spent £££ on a flight to see her. She was planning our bridesmaids outfits and all sorts. She was back within a week, completely crushed that it hadn't been all she thought. She's now in a similar position with another girl 🙄

In love, doubt it. You learn so much about someone from how they are with other people. There is an awful lot of missing information.

And is the spark real after all that anticipation? Very difficult to decipher reality and fantasy. I believe in a meeting of minds but I think sexual love chemistry is down to just that, real chemicals that you feel and smell. I've had that chemistry standing next to someone I've not even laid my eyes on yet. I'm a scientist tho.