Get your own Free Home PageCyber-Courting: Romance in the Information Age
by: Jon Crane
Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 1, No. 24 (November 14, 1998)
I know several people, now married, who have met their spouse online. Various Internet online services now open the door for meeting people not only from around the country, but around the world. Is this a good thing? By this I mean, has the Internet become just another place for people to meet, or is it opening doors to places we really shouldn't be going? It's how you use it, I suppose.
It's not all fairy tale romances, to be sure. There was a case reported in the press more than two years ago of the couple who'd met through an America OnLine chat room. They decided there was a mutual attraction and began chatting more frequently. Pictures were exchanged as were addresses and phone numbers. Finally, he expressed a desire to meet her as they only lived a four hour drive apart. A day was agreed upon but the night before she called him saying something had come up. They set another date.
Prior to the second meeting, the woman called and told him she'd have to postpone again. This went on twice more until the man began to suspect something. Unknown to the woman, he drove to her town and parked on her street near the address she had given him. At some point a woman—much older and physically different than the picture he'd been sent, appeared with children leaving the house. It turns out she was a forty-something mother and wife who'd just been looking for some diversion on the Internet.
Examples such as this abound in the short history of online communications. Certainly, as in any field of human relations, there are more than enough scoundrels to go around.
Through Internet e-mail, messages boards and chat services this "Magic Box" makes it possible for a person to talk to most anyone on the planet with a computer. The cost is often relatively inexpensive. However, because we are limited to just the words that appear on this screen, there is the possibility for great deception. I can be Harrison Ford, if I choose. After all, no one really knows how he types.
As in all human endeavors, caution is the operative word. Until you are sure of the person you are communicating with, do not give out information such as your last name, your hometown, or your address or phone number. While clever screen names are desirable, be careful that yours doesn't reveal things you don't wish to disclose. For example, the following screen name may describe yours truly: "N'awlinsHunk", but do I really want to tell people where I live right off the bat?
I have been fortunate to meet four people over the last couple of years whom I've known online. It's a strange experience. When we meet someone face-to-face whom we take a liking to, we start with the physical person and move to the heart and soul of the person over time.
On this "Magic Box", however, we get to know a person as we should, i.e., all we see is their heart, their mind and their soul. When we finally do meet them, even if we have a photograph, it's still like meeting someone for the first time as we study their face, their expressions and their mannerisms. We are usually delighted to find they are the same, face-to-face, as we've known them online.
I have several close friends whom I know only through this medium. We act and interact like friends anywhere--sharing our feelings, moods, stories of our children and our workdays. I've talked with them almost everyday for more than two years. One of them, our own editor, Judi Amey, I had the great joy of meeting last summer while visiting my daughter in Wisconsin.
But what of romance? Is it possible to meet someone here in cyberspace and fall in love--just like we used to do in the old days of "dating"--and decide we want a future with him or her? I can answer with another question. Where do you think I met Lana? 'Nuff said.
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