The Online Relationship: Why do we do it??

I doubt you’re a stranger to the long-distance, not-really-official, mostly-conducted-online relationship. In fact, you may be involved in one now.

Well my girlfriends and I certainly are, and last week over sushi, I came to an epiphany as we tried to comfort one another with “mine-is-worse” stories.

Basically, we all had met amazing guys—guys we would be “officially” with right now… if only we were in the same location! We had met them while studying abroad, on a spring break in Florida, or at a party last month when he was visiting from Phoenix. Basically, we all felt we had met someone with whom we shared something really special, but the damn distance was keeping us apart.



But as I sat there listening to a friend share every minute detail, as if trying to convince us her romance was legit, I wondered, why do we all meet great guys from far away, but the guys we meet locally (on campus, through our circles of friends, etc.), why do they rarely make the “meant-to be” cut?

I suspect we go into these “relationships” with guys we meet briefly, add on Facebook and ultimately invest hours and hours of our time talking to, CREATING a relationship that without digital communication, probably wouldn’t exist. I think we enjoy these types of relationships because they give us the freedom to create the perfect guy in our heads.

And don’t get me wrong. I don’t doubt for a second that he flirts with you or that you hit it off that weekend in Aruba—but I think for every hour spent talking online, we create days worth of relationship in our heads that probably never did, or never will exist. I think we fabricate the missing pieces that would normally be provided in a regular relationship, filling the free space between video chats with fantasies about how ideal our online guys must be.

Are we so discouraged by our local dating options that we prefer to create ideal relationships with guys online? And why do we believe he’s so much better than the guys we’ve dated nearby? Sure an Italian dreamboat has the understandable edge that your lab partner doesn’t, but do we know for sure he’s a better person? Better suited for you? Did he truly fall for every bit of you during your four-day fling in Florence—more so than the lab partner who’s been getting to know you all semester?

I think we build these long-distance guys up in our heads, putting them on a pedestal simply because we didn’t have the time to realize it just wasn’t right. And we wonder if he really was “the one” and blame distance forever for keeping us apart.

But are these boys just our comfort food when we’re single, the ones we can fondly look back on at any given time and think, “if only…?” Have movies and fairytales taught us that our soul mates are out there, and if we just believe, fate will bring us back together?

And are there ever times that it does work? I'm sure there are times when the long-distance chatting creates a solid foundation for a real-life relationship when you're finally reunited.

Let me know what you think and if you’ve ever had success (or terrible failures), cause I’m sure you all have stories!