Finding love online

One writer tells us what she’s learnt about having an online relationship…

We’ve all heard the horror-inducing stories about young teenage girls getting snatched up and fooled into a world of paedophilia rings and danger through online relationships. For ages I thought that this was the only type that existed: some 40-year-old predator seeking his next victim, so I’ve always been wary about who I talk to online. Despite this, as I was finishing sixth form I found myself in one anyway. *Spoiler alert* it wasn’t even a creep pretending to be someone they’re not.

Now comes the judgement that most people (including myself beforehand) seem to have on the tip of their tongue: how can you have a relationship with someone you’ve never met? How do you know they’re even who they say they are? Well, luckily for me, they were. If I had simply met someone on one social media platform, I would have been far more wary. However, across multiple platforms you really can get an insight into someone’s life. Tip: if their only profile picture on Facebook is a car, and they don’t interact with anyone else, then they’re probably not safe. But yes, it is hard to truly know whether a relationship will work outside of the virtual world if you have never met the person, but nowadays, platforms like Skype and Facetime mean that you can speak face-to-face (in a way) and really get to know the individual. I would strongly advise that anyone considering entering into an online relationship to Skype their potential partner a number of times before agreeing to meet up. If the person refuses to, or agrees but doesn’t look the same as their pictures, you have to realise that they may be hiding a whole variety of things.

Tip: if their only profile picture on Facebook is a car, and they don’t interact with anyone else, then they’re probably not safe.

Any relationship comes with problems, but online relationships make it a lot harder to overcome them. Often online relationships will be long distance, meaning that you can’t see the other person when you want to. This puts a great strain on the relationship as fights cannot be resolved in person, nor can important information be relayed face to face. Moreover, they’re alarmingly easy to end. Simply delete your social media accounts, block their number and voila, you’ve destroyed the relationship. This, combined with the fact that you know very little about each other’s lives outside of social media, means that trust is even more important than in a normal relationship… which is problematic when you haven’t even physically met up.
All in all, I would not say that online relationships are any less serious than ones which occur in “real life” outside of social media. It requires incredible commitment to make the time for your other half every day, and to develop the level of trust required to make it work. Remember that it is easy to fake things online, but less easy to do it over a video platform such as Skype, so make sure you know who a person really is before meeting them. But don’t be so quick to judge when your friends get into a relationship like this – not everybody on the internet is a maniac! Support them and make sure they’re secure in knowing who this person is.