E-Relationships DON'T Work

Question: Will a relationship with someone you meet online and know only exclusively through the Internet ever work out?

Answer: 99.99999% of the time, no.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Julia. Now Julia had gotten involved in some RP (role play, nothing kinky, just like fantasy world stuff) online and here she met a man who went by the name of Seth. While she never had met Seth in real life, or even knew where he was in this world of ours, she fell madly in love with him. For weeks, she was obsessed with this mysterious individual who talked with the smoothness of velvet which was then massaged with baby oil. For weeks her friends tried their hardest to convince her that this was unhealthy for her, physically and mentally but this persisted. One day however, the floor collapsed and Julia came back to her friends for help. For weeks, one of her friends talked to her for hours about why she must end this drug-like addiction to a man for which she doesn't know the whereabouts of or even his real name or face for that matter. Only after complete disconnection from this indivudal did Julia eventually become free of this scumbag which plagued her thoughts and robbed her of emotional life for much too long.

This was about a year and a half ago and a thoroughly true story. Julia did really meet a person named Seth online and for the longest time had her mind stolen from her as a result, enamored by his words. We, her friends, all hoped she would not make the same mistake again but today I found out she has once again fallen into this trap.

While less mysterious in comparison to Seth, a new boy, by the name of Matt from Nova Scotia has electronically captured the heart of Julia. The conversation between me and Julia started out innocently enough. "If a boy never starts the conversation does it mean he's not interested?" she asked, "No" i replied, "it could just mean he's shy." As the conversation progressed I began to become increasingly suspicious of what's going on. When I finally ask her why, she responds with she met another guy online who she had fallen badly in love with, claiming he's "soooo much better than Seth". It turns out they met over the summer also through RP via Twitter. Fortunately she had realized where she was heading and tried to limit conversation with him herself, but once again she cannot rid her mind of Matt. I dosed my advice once again that she has to realize that the fact that he's far away, a college senior and someone you only know virtually equates to something that will only harm her in the long run, a fact not taken willingly and with much protest. While the conversation sorta just fizzled out soon after, I hope she got the point of my message.

personally, I think E-Relationships, and especially long distance E-relationships, will only lead to trouble. Sure there are stories of people finding each other through the Internet, eventually meeting each other and end up having quintuplets with each other but just how realistic is that?

Given that I haven't ever actually been in a relationship, maybe my friends shouldn't all be coming to me for relationship advice, (funny, really) but sometimes friends really do need to guide friends back into line when things get out of hand.


Bad Relationship? I've got the remedy! (or at least a really good bowl of soup to take your mind off it)


All the best,

JP