Dating in your mid 20’s and internet romances

I really have become quite astounded at the number of people experiencing internet romances.

 

 I was watching a documentary on the SBS channel (im sorry I cant find the exact name of it I cant find it on the tv guide) but it followed 5 or 6 young Chinese people and the things they are going through, demonstrating what it is like in the new China for them and so on. Well one guy he was 25 years old I believe and a rapper/DJ by trade. He told his story of meeting a friend of a friend online like on MSN chat type thing and this online friendship developed into a blossoming relationship. He sent her all his savings – money so that she could go visit him and spent time with his in his city and as soon as she received his money she disappeared never to be heard of again. 6 or so months later he saw her online and asked her what happened why didn’t she come and all she replied was ‘I got scared I thought you might kill me’… now stop right there… I have two issues with this already; firstly why on earth did this guy send all his savings to a girl he has never met before? And secondly, the girl, I can empathise with the feeling that this guy could be a serial killer but if she got scared I think the right thing to have happened was for her to return the poor guy’s money to him but no it seems she kept it and he never saw it again.

 

I went overseas last year and was travelling certain parts of the world and came across another, more tragic, internet romance story. A young 15 year old girl from the town I was staying in met a guy on the internet they talked and had a romance for 6 months before he decided to travel across the country to meet her, he was 17 or so they said. He arrived at the town they went out for one day, yes ONE day, that’s all he came for and he returned to his home town she never heard from him again. Turns out 3 months later after the girl was suffering great depression and heart break she finds out she was pregnant and he was the father. She could not contact him, he didn’t return phone calls or emails and a week before her next school term began she took her own life. She left a note explaining the whole shamble to her parents and apologising for getting herself pregnant. She explained that she could not live with her heart break, she felt the utmost rejection she could possible stand and that knowing she was pregnant with his child all she could think of was how immensely she would disappoint her parents, the humiliation she would feel in school and that she felt her life had ended and it might as well end physically as well.

 

How many of us have loved to such a degree? I think a lot of us and throughout history people have felt how the heart knows no boundaries sometimes. It is a new phenomenon though, this falling in love with a stranger over a computer screen and words. Why does it happen? I have heard of some internet romances having quite the happy ending. A few years ago I came across a guy who met a girl in the USA over the internet after 9 months he flew over to meet her and they married within 6 months. Last time I heard they were on to baby number 3.

 

Maybe having someone on the other side of this digital fence is safer to begin with? Maybe its not really real but at the same time it’s the most real thing that is happening to that person and so they feel safer, freer to express their desires, dreams and live out fantasies that otherwise may never come to fruition. Because you can ‘delete’ sentences that you may later regret, maybe because time is on your side and you can think about your responses. You do not have the person with you by your side to really see how they act and react to certain situations. The person tells you how they are, what they like, how they act, so maybe it’s the idea of that person that one could fall ‘in love’ with and not the real person.

 

I have a particular theory now, with my own love life experiences, which says that no matter what the situation you should judge how much are you willing to lose of yourself? And if you can understand that then go ahead and love to the degree you want… as long as you are aware of what you are risking in been in that relationship. I am not claiming that is right, its just something that is in the back of my head.. as Arabian Princess (see blogroll) once put it to me.. where do we draw the line in the sand?

 

I think we should all have lines in the sand that if a person crosses that line that you will not stand for it. Protecting ones self whilst at the same time not letting those lines or walls hinder any beautiful relationships that could come our way is the balancing act that we all seem to try and juggle.

 

God love can be so complicated… but it can be oh so so beautiful and that is what I look forward to.