Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevergrowup
Strange how one can confide in total strangers on the net, huh?
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Actually, no... it's not strange. Are you talking about your confiding in us, or your ex confiding in the stranger who romanced, then scammed her?
Either way, it is probably
much easier for people to confide in strangers than in people they know personally.
A few bits of advice I have read about long distance internet "relationships" over the years:
1. Only one in six survive the first face-to-face meeting. It is easy for "chemistry" to happen and a kindred spirit feelings to develop in chat and emails (and over the phone), but real life is much more multi-dimensional than that. I read about a couple that "fell in love" online, but when the woman flew to meet the guy, he fixed TV dinners for them in his messy apartment and they ate sitting on the floor watching TV with the food on the coffee table. She quickly figured out this was his A-game insofar as real life, although he had been very romantic online.
2. Some people are willing to develop a relationship with someone halfway across the country or on the other side of the earth because that is "safe" for them. They can keep it non-threatening (and perhaps hide behind a 20-yr. old photo) and indulge their fear of failure because the other person is essentially unavailable.
3. If one is using a site like Match.com or eharmony.com and you do seem to be connecting with someone, don't spend 3 to 6 months developing a relationship before meeting them to see if things work face to face. No need to invest a lot of time and emotion only to find they're a dud in real life. Meet as soon as possible.
4. Likewise, using those sites, it's not wise to start something up with someone who is located so far away from you that you can't spend time with them at least every other weekend, so don't set up the distance parameters of your search further than that. Certainly, there are success stories that don't follow this suggestion, but they are rare.