It's up to US, to know ourselves and to attempt to establish healthy relationships. This blog is about all sexes and genders, how we think and what we think. It is a blog about "maybe's" and "what if's". It is a conversation about media awareness, diversity, inclusion, relationships, sex, love and everything in between.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Is it Possible To Love Someone You've Never Met?


One of my new favorite shows on MTV is called Catfish, stemming from the same-titled  documentary by Nev Schulman, which is based on online dating. The most recent episode inspired me to write this blog post. I’m going to try my best not to spoil anything about the episode!!  

Basically, all of the episodes so far have provoked me to question whether its possible to truly love someone that you’ve only spoke to online. I’ve always thought that a relationship is not “real” unless it's face-to- face, and that building a prolonged online relationship could never end well, but this most recent episode made me think twice.


First of all let’s face it, we’ve come along way from AOL chat rooms. Online dating is a huge craze these days. People are meeting, dating and marrying the people they meet online.  It has become a legitimate way to meet new people! If I was single, I’d definitely do it. It can be beneficial for a person who’s extremely busy or a little shy.... or someone who simply doesn’t want to waste time weeding through all the drunk people at bars to find a diamond in the rough (some say that's a lost cause ha.) On the other hand, online dating can be dangerous and you risk falling for someone who isn’t who they say they are, as Catfish (or unfortunate personal experience) has shown us.

So back to my question, can you truly be in love with someone you’ve never seen face to face? Something that stood out to me in this weeks episode is the fact that Dani said he didn’t feel like the relationship really started until they met. However, when they did meet it was obvious the connection and foundation of a relationship was there and had been there for quite awhile. Maybe there are limits to online relationships and how they can grow, but it doesn't mean a person can't fall for someone they meet online before they've met them?  

 

I’d love to hear people’s thoughts about online dating, whether they’ve seen the episode or not. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you check it out!

 

This episode of Catfish taught me that love is found in many ways and it shows up in different forms. I will never again judge the way people fall in love and I will embrace the fact that two people can love each other outside of race, gender, culture or class. Thanks, Catfish.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with this 100%! I just don't think a relationship can be fully complete unless they actually end up meeting. But I think the internet is totally an acceptable way to start a relationship. The times they are a changin!

---laura

Myrna said...

Catfish makes me scared of online dating haha

Matt Fasl said...

Okay, so spinning off of our twitter conversation, (and yes I did watch an episode of the show) I stand by what I said. You can become interested in someone without meeting them, and indeed you can develop a crush and even a relationship, but you'd be stupid to say you're in love without having seen them in person (or at the very least least videochat) to verify who they really are, not just physically but also personality-wise. Someone who thinks they know someone well enough they've never met and claim to be "in love" is either fairly naive, or somewhat emotionally unstable. If you develop a long enough relationship with someone you've never met all you're doing is creating an almost certainly false version of them in your head, made up of very few facts and supplemented with whatever you've imagined/want them to be. You can fall in love with that idea of someone, but it doesn't make it any more real. Real love isn't so easy. Some people still struggle with that in actual relationships, let alone virtual ones.

Colleen said...

I have met one person in a romantic way from the Internet. I had strong feelings for him, which were further cemented after meeting him in person. I wouldn't say I loved him, but I liked him A LOT. And when things ended after a very brief time, I was devastated. Probably more than I would have been had we never met. So there is definitely substance to this.

FemmeDeBloom said...

Colleen thanks for reading and for the input! My views on online dating are constantly changing and I think it's become a new way of making connections. I'm sorry to hear that the relationship ended :(