Valeria Protasova

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Does this love have a future? What are the dangers? And why do so many of us look for love on the Internet?

Why is it so easy to find love online and develop virtual relationships?

The Internet is a mass of opportunities for expressing one's emotions and for communication - emoticons, dating sites, resources on interests, instant messages, etc. Temptations - the sea, opportunities to meet - even more. Moreover, many give preference to dating on the Internet, in reality bypassing potential “halves” per kilometer.

Why does love flare up faster on the Internet than in real life?

• Acute need for attention . If in real life there is not enough emotions, communication and attention (and many are really deprived of it due to circumstances), the Internet becomes almost the only opportunity to feel needed by someone.
• internet addiction . Social networks and interest sites draw a person into the World Wide Web very quickly. Life in reality fades into the background. Because it is there, on the Internet, that we (as it seems to us) are understood, expected and loved, and at home and at work there are only omissions, quarrels and fatigue. On the Internet, we are practically unpunished and can be anyone, in reality we need to be responsible for our words and actions. Dependence becomes stronger, the poorer the real life of a person.
• Ease of making new acquaintances and "friends". On the Internet, it's easy. I went to a social network or a site of interest, exchanged a couple of phrases, clicked on the “traditional” heart in the photo - and they noticed you. If you are original, principled and smart, pouring humor right and left, and your photo shows unearthly beauty (“so what, photoshop! Who knows about this?”), then you are guaranteed a crowd of fans. And there it is not far from the favorites (with all the consequences).
• Few dare to take the first step towards dating in real life. Meeting your soul mate is even more difficult. On the Internet, everything is much easier. You can hide behind the mask of an “avatar” and fictitious information about yourself. You can turn into a model with the 5th breast number or a tanned athlete with a Hollywood smile and a Porsche in the garage. Or, on the contrary, you can be yourself and enjoy it, because in real life you have to keep yourself in check. And it seems - here it is! So charming, courageous - smart speeches, courtesy ... And how he jokes! Innocent virtual flirting flows into e-mail, then Skype and ICQ. And then real life completely fades into the background, because all life is in these short messages “from Him”.
• In reality, hoaxes don't make sense. "Hu from hu" - you can see it right away. On the Web, you can distort your “I” to infinity, until the one “pecks” from whose speeches you can’t fall asleep at night.
• The image of a person, on which we stop our attention on the Internet, draws, for the most part, our imagination. What it really is is unknown, but we already have our own “bars” and ideas about what it should be like. And, of course, a bespectacled nerd who is only interested in cockroaches in his aquarium, or a blurry housewife with cucumbers on her face, simply cannot sit on the other side of the monitor! The more illusions, the richer our fantasy, the harder it is to realize later that there is a person just like you on the other “end” of the Internet. Possibly with knees stretched out in sweatpants, with a bike instead of a Porsche, with (oh, horror) a pimple on his nose.
• It is easier for strangers (this happens on trains, with fellow travelers) to reveal their feelings. Ease of communication creates the illusion of mutual interest.
• It is almost impossible to see human flaws online. Even if the resume honestly says “gluttonous, arrogant snob, I love women, freebies and money, unscrupulous, attracted, consisted, who doesn’t like it, the book of complaints is around the corner” - this person makes you smile and, oddly enough, immediately wins you over. Because it is intriguing, creative and bold.
• The biggest problem that virtual love can bring is the breaking of the "epistolary novel" by ICQ or mail. That is, no pregnancy, alimony, division of property for you etc.
• Mystery, mystery, obligatory veil of "mystery" - they always spur interest and feelings.

What are the dangers of virtual love: relationships in social networks and possible consequences

It just seems that virtual love is an innocent game or the beginning of a serious relationship, and everything else is protected by the boundaries of the Web.

But online dating can also bring very real troubles:

• A sweet, gentle and touchingly courteous person on the Internet can turn out to be a real dictator in life. Not to mention more severe cases (maniacs with chainsaws will not be considered).
• Information that is about a person on the Internet, not always true . It is quite possible that his place of residence is fictitious, the photo was downloaded from the network, instead of a name - a pseudonym, instead of a blank page in the passport - a stamp from the registry office, and several children, whom he naturally did not intend to leave for you.
• To indulge yourself with the illusion - “they say, appearance is not the main thing” - is wrong in advance . Even if in reality a person really turns out to be a gentle romantic with great wealth, his appearance, voice and manner of communication can terrify you at the first meeting.
• Often "virtual love" ends with very real quarrels , as a result of which "the secret of personal correspondence", photographs, as well as intimate and vital details become public.

As you communicate with virtual "love", the lines between reality and the Internet are gradually blurred - there is a chronic fear of breaking this thread, the connection with a person. But real feelings cannot last forever within the Network - sooner or later they will have to be interrupted or move to the phase of real communication. And then the question arises - is it necessary? Will the meeting be the beginning of the end?

Love on the Internet - meeting in real life: is it necessary to continue virtual relationships, and in what cases can this be done?

So, the question - to meet or not to meet - is on the agenda. Is it worth it to cross this line? Maybe leave everything as it is? Of course, there can be no advice here - everyone draws his own destiny.

But some nuances are worth considering:

• Fear of meeting in reality is a normal phenomenon. The chosen one can really disappoint and repel you. But if you don't see it, you won't know. What if this is “the one” that you have been waiting for all your life?
• Loving the image created on the Web is one thing. It is quite another thing to fall in love with a real person with real flaws. Complete rejection of each other at the first meeting is a clear sign that the relationship will not work out.
• Disappointed with the appearance of your virtual lover? The muscles were not so prominent, and the smile was not so snow-white? Thinking of running away from your first date? So, you were not so fascinated by his inner world, since such a trifle could "knock you out of the saddle." Maybe he’s not even an athlete at all, and he doesn’t have money for a chic restaurant, but he will best dad in the world and the most caring husband. Get ready for disappointment. Because there are no perfect people in the world.
• Definitely you should not meet outside the virtual if you do not know anything about "beloved ”, except for email, photo (which may not be his) and name.
• You want to meet, but he constantly takes the conversation in a different direction? It means that either he has enough virtual relationships, or he is married, or he is afraid to reveal himself to you from the real side, or he is afraid to be disappointed in you.
• If you don't want to disappoint the person, be sincere. Not too frank (after all, this is the Internet), but sincere. That is, don’t lie, don’t embellish reality, don’t draw mouth-watering charms, a smooth face and emerald eyes in Photoshop. Falsehood will never be the beginning of a strong union.
• Get ready for the fact that the meeting may be the first and last , and your "ideal" will not become your soul mate.
• If you already have a family in reality , think a hundred times before destroying it because of a virtual romance. As a result, you can lose your family and be disappointed in virtual love.

Did the meeting go well? Are emotions overwhelming? And is it "he"? So, the Internet has given you a chance for happiness . Build relationships, love and enjoy life!

Hello dear readers of the blog Samprosvetbulletin!

“I fell in love with a man over the Internet. This lasted for 7 months. We met on a dating site, almost every day we talked on Skype. We have a lot in common, we think alike. He lives in another city and we wanted to meet on his vacation. He said that he loved me, he wanted a family with me and that everything was decided for him. I was also sure that this is the man I need. Then he suddenly became less likely to get in touch, as I felt with my heart, I checked the dating site, and he was online and active there all the time. I asked him that he is not sure about us, that his feelings have changed? He said he loves me and we will meet soon. Then we talked two more times, he no longer mentioned the meeting. And now for two weeks he is silent, does not answer me. I am very worried about all this and I no longer want to get acquainted. I don't want to be disappointed again." writes Irina.

“I met a man from Germany on the Internet, I myself live in Kyiv. We were always in touch, he wrote to me in a chat, called, in the evenings we sat with him on Skype. Two weeks later he confessed his love to me. At first I did not want to take this seriously, I said that it was too early to talk about it before the meeting. But he was very offended, and said that he was saying what he had. Then I myself began to have strong feelings for him, it turns out that I fell in love on the Internet with a man whom I had never met in real life. He planned to come to me in two months, and during these two months of communication, I became so attached to him that I could not imagine life without him. Then, at the last moment, he said that his mother was ill, she would be operated on and he had to go to her, and that he had postponed the date of arrival. He went to his mother and did not get in touch anymore. I feel broken and deceived. I don't understand how you can cut it all off like this. I don’t know how to come to my senses now and start all over again, my hands drop, I can no longer trust anyone, ” writes Lisa.

Virtual life in real relationship mode

Falling in love online with someone you've never met sounds incredible. But as a psychologist in my work, in fact, I often have to deal with such loves.

It looks like this. A woman begins to feel “chemistry” during intense Internet communication, experiences attraction and longing. Usually, in such communication, there is an exchange of promises, spiritual revelations, the discovery of one's feelings. All the experiences that a woman experiences are quite real for her. She begins to feel in real relationship mode, feeling that she is already emotionally connected with her virtual chosen one. She is waiting for virtual communication, she lives by it, it occupies her thoughts. And even worse, she begins to invest her energy, her strength, her emotions, her soul into these imaginary relationships.

If communication on the Internet turns into a real meeting and the feelings of a woman are reinforced, then Internet love simply gets its continuation in the romantic story of two people.

The problem arises when your counterpart delays a real meeting, suddenly begins to disappear or completely disappears and his inexplicable absence leaves you with a broken heart. You ask yourself questions: what was it? Is it possible to cut everything off so easily? Why ? You have given so much strength and energy to this communication and hopes that now you feel emotionally exhausted.

After virtual disappointments, many women need no less time to recover, just like.

So why are some women able to fall in love just by talking on Skype or chat, while others prefer to develop their feelings based on the real actions of a man?

Instant Satisfaction

We all have needs to love and be loved, and we meet these needs in different ways. Someone consciously chooses, based on his qualities and really experienced joint experience, and already in the relationship he has built, he finds the satisfaction of needs for love.

Someone satisfies their needs impulsively, without awareness, under the influence of the moment and circumstances when the opportunity to apply their unsatisfied feelings to something turned up. And communication with a nice man on the Internet is the most suitable opportunity for this. You can immediately get the satisfaction of the need for emotional attachment by allowing your fantasy to fly freely behind the words of a man.

For a while, you feel the satisfaction of the need for love, feelings inspire you and you follow them, letting yourself be carried away by hopes and dreams. Unfortunately, the risk of deep and painful disappointments with this approach is too great, because there is still no reliable and healthy basis for a happy relationship.

Could this be the start of something more?

Intense conversations and promises over Skype or chat, over the phone or e-mail give a woman the illusion that she is already in a real relationship or, as many have told me in such cases, that this is “the beginning of something more.”

In our time information technologies, when you can unlimitedly meet and communicate in the virtual space, the line between the real and the virtual is already blurred for many.

Let's see how the beginning of something more than virtual fantasies differs.

Real relationships differ from fantasy in that they always progress, move forward and develop in real life, and not in a virtual environment.

Now many relationships are starting their development from the virtual environment into real life.

The beginning of something bigger is a man's real investment:

- time: he plans to meet, he organizes your meeting, he will spend his time getting to know you better;

- resources: he spends funds on your dates, uses his creative potential, sense of humor, their abilities.

Love takes time to develop, and even if feelings develop quickly, it happens when you communicate face to face, not on a computer.

If you are too hasty with talking about love, about plans for a joint future, about marriage, these topics lose their “holiness” and seriousness. There is already a child's perception of these themes here, where two children in play indulge in fantasies about the future, with no consideration of any consequences or real actions to achieve this fantasy.

What to do

Don't confuse communication with relationships. Don't invest your emotions in someone you've never met before. There are many men on the net in search of their soulmate, but there are also enough of those who are not capable of real actions and are satisfied with virtual fantasies.

Is it possible to fall in love over the Internet? Almost everyone asks themselves this question, but do they get an answer? Communication on the Internet is very different from real, everyday life. On the Internet, sometimes it is possible to write something that is so difficult to say in the eyes, but in fact the very significance of the expressed thoughts is lost. After all, confessing our sympathy to someone via the Internet, without having visual contact, we cannot observe the reactions of our interlocutor. Has he been imbued with our not always competently printed lines, or is he laughing at us?

Despite all this, I want to believe that a bright ghost roams the next "www" true love. How to find it? Today there is an unlimited number of dating sites, chats, etc. Thousands of girls and boys dream of meeting each other, fill out questionnaires, click on the photos of the people they like with burning eyes, make acquaintances. But according to statistics, stronger relationships, and sometimes something more, happen on sites that are just not designed for this.

The probability of finding your soul mate in this "web" is greater when the conversation does not imply a stormy continuation in real life and we ourselves do not notice how from the standard "how are you?" we go to “can we meet?”. Liberated, freer communication allows you to get to know a person much better, in such communication there is no tension, no choice of words, no desire to quickly achieve some kind of result. Both in real life and on the Internet, love, sympathy or friendship cannot be controlled.

Love is a free feeling, it chooses us, not we choose it. Who knows, maybe the next one who knocks on your “ICQ” or starts a casual conversation in some kind of chat will be the one with whom you share joy and sorrow, illness and health. Does that mean it's worth looking for love from now on? No. I repeat, love is a free feeling, and when you go hunting for it, you will most likely return with nothing. She will find you. It doesn't matter where you live, in Kyiv or Moscow, in Berlin or Odessa. Love is as great, confusing, global as the net we are in ordinary people we go out daily.

Looking for the necessary information, looking at photographs or reading the news, one day we will understand that we cannot do without communicating with this or that person, that it is difficult for us without these couple of lines printed by his fingers. Someone may say that this is nonsense, but even he is not immune from the fact that one day he will wake up next to a person who until recently was only letters on the monitor.

Well, the question is: “is it possible to fall in love on the Internet?”, The answer ... Everyone will have to choose the answer for themselves, believe not believe, and maybe feel it for themselves. One thing is clear: regardless of whether we believe in Internet love or not, we definitely cannot know what awaits us on the next "www".

This article is dedicated to those girls who fell in love on the Internet, and at the same time have difficulties in relationships with real guys. Is it worth listening to your "virtual" feelings or is it just nonsense? Or maybe the Internet lover was created just for you?

Very often you can meet young girls who meet guys on the Internet. They begin to fall deeply in love. It also happens that a girl does not know the true feelings of a young man, but she is sure that he really likes him. He invites them to finally meet and see each other "live". But in real life, that girl already has a boyfriend with whom they have been together for a long time and are even going to get married. But she does not feel passionate love for him, but she respects and appreciates him very much. What should she do in this case?

Of course, falling in love with a person on the Internet is very easy, probably, it will become much easier than falling in love with a real person, from your environment. This is by no means stupidity and recklessness. Everything has its reasons. Read about both their positive and negative sides.

The whole point is that virtual communication can give us much less information than if you recognize him in real life. Information about the partner is disclosed in the process of communication in various life situations. And the very correspondence on the Internet, unfortunately, deprives us of this opportunity, and our rich imagination begins to "finish" the picture. That's why it becomes so easy to fall in love with your own fantasy.

In the case of that girl, the reason why she started an affair with a “virtual” person lies in the dissatisfaction of some part of her soul. Most likely, she did not have such emotions with a real guy. In such cases, girls need to think about how they feel when communicating with a virtual friend and whether a real person from her environment can give these very emotions. It is possible that a real relationship just needs a shake-up. And if such relationships are really expensive, then you need to think about how to improve them.
But it also happens differently. A joint future with a real person is in no way possible. If a girl is sure of this, then she needs to first deal with the “old” relationship, and then start a new one. Of course, this is very ugly and dishonest in relation to the person with whom she meets. And then you must definitely continue your communication with your lover on the Internet, meet him, in the end, and find out what he really is. But it is worth remembering: having learned it, you can be very disappointed. So, before doing anything, you will need to weigh everything carefully.

What happens if, by an effort of will, you break off relations with an Internet lover?

Most likely, you will have a certain image of an ideal prince in your mind, and you will forever walk in conjectures: what would happen if you continued your relationship? Such incomplete relationships can haunt a person long years. And the reason for this is uncertainty, ambiguity and understatement. Just figure it out: who is this person, because of whom you do not sleep at night and suffer? Is it really what you imagine it to be in your dreams? And what kind of future do you both want together?

The most important thing for you is to get a result in order to get enough information about that person, not to be disappointed in him and not to regret that you still could not meet. Or maybe he is your destiny?