Personal Development

» plutopsyche - Meeting people

A virtual affair is an interactive story, a fantasy, really, with two collaborating authors.

It can be that way, yes, but the first place I 'met' my husband was online. We weren't looking for partners, we didn't visit dating sites or what have you.

We met in on mIRC in a chatroom of shared interest. We chatted as friends for a years, dated other people, until he decided set off from England to visit Canada and found out we clicked even better offline.

This August it will be our fifth wedding anniversary, and he's now eligible to apply for citizenship. We would likely have never met otherwise.

To dismiss all relationships begun online oughtright seems rather abrupt and misguided. Fifty years ago the same thing happened with penpals; e-mail's just a little faster.

-- posted by plutopsyche

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» pradocg - Meeting people

In response to Meeting people posted by plutopsyche:

Wait a minute; who said anything about dismissing all relationships begun online?? I know someone who also has been married a number of years to someone they met online. My concern was with virtual affairs conducted by people with partners, and hiding the relation from their partners. What you describe is very different.

-- posted by pradocg

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» pink101 - Refreshing

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I agree with your assessment non-attached persons meeting on-line.

I liked your well put and concise article on affairs. It's refreshing to read from a person of such academic standing as yourself. Thank you.

I noticed an on-line affair between two persons both of whom were quite religious. I don't think they ever realized the extent of the on-line relationship they were building. It was interesting to watch their relationship as it developed. I wondered if they ever figured it out.

WI've noticed something that might qualify as on-line promiscuity. Have you noticed or given that any thought?

-- posted by pink101

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» Louise88 - Meeting people

In response to Meeting people posted by pradocg:

I don't know the name of the rhetorical technique where one person says "X are bad", the respondent says "Hey, some X are good and here is an example," and the first person backpedals to say "Oh, I didn't say all X are bad, just the ones written in lower case, you know what I meant." But I think you are using that technique here.

I agree that non-consensual role-playing has the potential to be harmful. There are lots of opportunities on the internet for consensual role-playing, such as multiple-user games where players take on a persona.

I also agree that it is possible to reach sufficient emotional intimacy in an internet-only friendship to make one's existing partner uncomfortable. Similar risks exist in a face-to-face friendship, with similar ways to reduce them. Including one's partner in the circle of friends is the most obvious way: mentioning the partner on the newsgroup or the lunch table, telling the partner what the fascinating new person said in the chatroom or the department meeting, introducing the partner and the new person to each other, telling the new person that you don't keep secrets from your spouse and then living up to that. People who choose to keep important emotional relationships secret from partners who would feel betrayed are doing something wrong whether or not they use the internet.

I have also heard many stories of people who were having "virtual affairs" in secrecy from their committed partners, but for whom part of the novelty was that of on-line honesty rather than that of on-line deception. "I can tell him things I've never told my husband" for example. This doesn't fit your simple model, but is unfortunate in its own way.

-- posted by Louise88

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