BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?

Subject: BS: Cyber Relationships. is there a lot?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 03:33 PM

I know of two couples who met over the internet and each formed a good relationship. One was translantic even!

I also know of another one that turned out to be disastrous - when the person came over from America to meet the person who he had corresponded with it didn't work out in a big way.

Has anyone else come across this sort of thing?

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: bobad
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 04:30 PM

I know of someone from Australia who left her husband for someone in the US that she had met online.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 04:40 PM

It's very much like the 'pen pals' I knew as a kid. People write to each other, become interested, and it often goes further. Remember...pen pals often committed to ocean trips and marriage after years of exchanging snail mail.

Yes...I know of several internet relationships. Some worked very well, some didn't...just like in real life.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 04:48 PM

I (American) met TheSilentOne (English) in a poetry forum/chat on 1st Jan 2001. Married him on 1st Jan 2003. I moved from Virginia to the United Kingdom.

We are approaching year 10 of knowing each other and it still feels new. He is my Angel.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 04:49 PM

Think of it this way... a person may have 'focused' interests which are not common: especially if they live in smaller communities.
    Online, there are groups and forums devoted to narrow interests, whether it be "folk music", collecting barbed wire, or dressing as animals.. (don't laugh...all of those are real). It is easy to strike up friendship of various sorts, and meetings often follow.
The good thing is... one doesn't HAVE to meet someone until they think they know it's a good idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 06:06 PM

Ineed Bill. Now where is the "dressing as animals" forum!! There may be a space for a morris dancer dressed as a horse.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 06:20 PM

Oh, those kinds of relationships...

Well, there's Jacqui and Kendall... I'd say that Jacqui got the short end of the stick there but hey??? She even lets him bring his harpoon in the house...

Then there's CarolC and Jack the Sailor... I think they are both purdy great people so that one get a Bobert SOP (Sign of Approval)...

As fir me??? I ain't into all that fallin' on love stuff 'cause that's allready taken care of but I ain't been disappointed with anyone I've met in person after meetin' them on the innernet...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 06:28 PM

I met my husband (Jack the Sailor) here in the Mudcat. He's Canadian, and I'm USAn. He was living in Georgia when we first encountered each other online, and I was living in West Virginia.

We celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary in October. We've known each other for about 8 years, although each of us was aware of the other for several months before that. I would say it worked out very well.

The important thing in meeting people in any setting, and especially in long distance settings, in my opinion, is to not be looking for someone. I think people usually get bad results when they're crusing for a mate in any setting. We got to know each other over time with no expectations of anything more than casual online interactions, and we found ourselves becoming best friends during that time.

Shortly after we got married, one of JtS' good friends made this remark, after JtS and I had been engaging in some smartassiness together, "Carol, you are so the right woman for him". Sometimes it's necessary to widen the pool of potential partners in order to accidentally bump into the right one.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 06:36 PM

Here's a bunch of dressing as animals fora...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=furries+forum&cts=1258068604801&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g1g-sx1g-msx6

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Janie
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 06:38 PM

In addition to the relationships that I know have worked out where folks met on sites such as Mudcat, I have a few good friends who eventually found compatible mates on web dating sites like eHarmony and Match.com, or from personal ads. From what friends and clients have shared regarding using the personals and on-line dating sites, it takes a strong desire to keep at it and withstand rejection, and also a pretty clear idea of what you are looking for in a person and a relationship.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 06:38 PM

Interesting thread (I think). Naturally we hear about the successes - I wonder if anyone will admit to a failure? I certainly know of one total disaster - though I suspect at least one of the partners had lied through ther teeth about themselves!!

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 06:41 PM

My niece and my brother each met a person online, but not through a matching service, whom they eventually married. I'd guess it is possible to do well in cyberspace.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Janie
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 06:57 PM

Haven't tried it myself, Dave. But referring again to the on-line dating sites and personal ads in print media, those people I know who have found good and lasting relationships encountered a significant number of failures on the way to meeting Mr or Ms. Right. Most involved just meeting person to person once or twice, a few led to intense but short-lived romances. Those that eventually found simpatico mates stayed with it, or took short breaks and then kept trying again.

Just like in 3-D.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 07:25 PM

Yep.. Carol C shows you how many there are...

You sure wouldn't want to poll your neighbors to find a compatible group like this

Naturally, there are cyber 'relationships' that never involve RT meetings. Use your imagination. I left one 14 years ago that got to going the wrong (for me) directions...

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 10:35 PM

One of Mudcat's own met their partner online at www.greensingles.com and they are very happy.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: GUEST,jts
Date: 12 Nov 09 - 11:19 PM

One of those costumes is not like the others.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 02:48 AM

Can't tell you about failures, Dave - I met my husband on line in January 2001 and we've been happily in love ever since. Married in 2004. He was then in Cardiff and I was in London and I'm happy to say I came back to Wales to make life easier. Not regretted any of it for an instant.
I was meeting loads of people superficially in loads of places, from performing contexts to teaching, but it's hard to form relationships when you're constantly on the move. We're both fairly shy people despite being performers, and meeting on line meant we were able to be honest about what we wanted and were looking for, and weren't distracted by physical appearances, alcohol or peer pressure!

The chatroom where we met had a good track record of other couples linking up. At the time we met there were at least another dozen couples (some transatlantic) who had made a permanent relationship after meeting there.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 05:05 AM

The key element to remember is that the visuals are not there. Photographs and videos (if present) come a lot later in the relationship all too often. And written verbiage is carefully considered - painfully so sometimes.

Now if you went to a Folk Club, Ceilidh or festival the visuals would be the first thing. And more dynamic than any video. And then there are the pheromones. They work at the subconscious level and are very present at any age.

Any distance relationship has to to gamble that the close-up elements don't clash. But when the written text is all you have it gets more attention than it deserves.

So - I would say there are not a lot of cyber relations, just more than there used to be (or their equivalents like pen pals, dating agencies, personal ads etc).

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: GUEST,Kendall
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 05:40 AM

Bobert, I got the best of the deal alright. Any woman who can put up with me is ok. By the way, I no longer have that harpoon; at my age I no longer have any use for it so I gave it to Captain Jim Sharpe for his nautical museum in Rockland Maine.

As far as meeting someone compatible goes, the internet is one source, but you must be wary. I don't think I would want to go for the actual dating sites, but Mudcat is different. Jacqui and I were obviously a match from the start and we still are.

I can't say I'm deleriously happy, never have been, but she does help me to stay on the giddy side of morose.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 09:22 AM

Don't he say the nicest things! we were both very lucky to meet as we did and it's worked out well.

I do know of a couple of transatlantic partnerships that didn't do so well, no names, no pack drill - but sometimes outside elements can cause major problems as can extreme differences in personality that are not obvious until a couple start living cheek by jowl.

as I said - Kendall and I were very lucky.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Becca72
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 12:40 PM

I met my most recent mate online. While the relationship didn't last, he is one of my dearest friends to this day so I'd say that's still a positive outcome.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 01:19 PM

If major problems can make or break a relationship then it is no longer a good match. If TheSilentOne hadn't been around to help me through a number of horrible major incidents, I would not still be here.

S'why i call him an Angel.

While we are at it. Anybody know a nice young man to introduce to my daughter (age 25)?

She is SO going to kill me.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 01:31 PM

"... a nice young man to introduce to my daughter (age 25)"

sure... I got a son age 27....but 'nice' seldom means 'compatible'. His interests and habits would be odd to some, even though folk music is now one of them.

I know people of both sexes who are perfectly decent, interesting people, but who have little things that keep them from 'meshing' well with most others in any living together arrangement.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: GUEST,jts
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 01:47 PM

I doubt the feasibility of trans Atlantic, third party, mother induced, cyber-matched hookups.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 13 Nov 09 - 02:57 PM

jeesh..... i was only kidding, muchachos.

peeps can be so serious here.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 07:15 AM

Yep, Kat, and we couldn't have met any other way!

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 07:07 AM

My husband and I met online. Neither of us had ever gone on a site before. I had only just bought a computer. We met on Cafe Tropic, an International meeting site. and I was merely looking for international friends of both sexes, even families, to learn about other countries. I got 47 replies, and for some reason, I connected up with Ib. He's black, I'm white. He's a Muslim, I'm a Christian, he's much younger than me. He speaks no English, I don't speak Malinke. But we communicated in French. I've travelled all over West Africa, so we decided to meet up in Accra on my trip to Ghana. I paid for his first flight ever. He was terrified of the plane, had never seen a flushing toilet, never been in a hotel. (He'd flown from Abidjan, Ivory Coast) But from our first sight of eachother at Accra airport, we just 'knew'. Our marriage is a very happy one, and we sincerely believe it was meant to be. We're still amazed at how all this came about, and very thankful!

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 07:10 AM

I must add that Ib could only access a computer in a 'cyber' in Abidjan, a little booth, where you pay for an hour online. We spent ages on Messenger and wrote hundreds of emails to each other. Sometimes he'd have a powercut over there and the connection went dead. It really is a miracle how we progressed and finally reached our destiny!

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 07:10 AM

Hey, I'm 19! I'm nice...enough. I just have moments where I pretend I'm a plane.

I can't speak for relationships much, but I have a Norwegian friend who I called the Norwegian Lady Friend. Someone else from a chatroom I frequent started a relationship with her, and I thought that he was foolish for not meeting her in person. Turns out he lied about his age so it all came crumbling down.

I know I've made a lot of friends online, which I couldn't call close friends, but I enjoyed meeting them last year (just like I intend to enjoy this year as well).

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: J-boy
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 12:00 AM

I met ranger1 the old fashioned way. In a bar. Boring I know but in our defense we were both there to listen to folk music. Wonderful things happen when you aren't looking for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 02:43 PM

I got the idea to write a song about online relationships back in ~1993, and did.
It's called e-mail He-male (and, as it happens, will be on the upcoming Mudcat Sampler set of CDs).

Strangely enough, a few years later I met -- online -- the man who is now my husband. Our first contact was actually mistaken identity; I posted a response to something someone else had written, and mistakenly attributed it to him (i.e. I "said", "Iain wrote" when it was actually Ian (without an i) what wrote it).

After a year or two of (friendly, not romantic) correspondence, he managed a trip to the US -- on a shoestring budget -- staying with people he knew from online.
I said, "If you make it to the Detroit area, you're welcome to crash here." He took me up on the offer, but (to my great dismay!) my housemate felt it unwise to allow a man I had never actually met to sleep in the house with us two single women (no other men present). I remember that when I complained to my Mom about my housemate's refusal to allow him to crash with us, she (my Mom) said, "Thank God at least one of you has some sense!" I thought it highly unlikely (though, I admit, not entirely impossible) that an axe-murderer would have the patience -- as well as the ability -- to maintain a correspondence for so long without that aspect of his personality surfacing at some point(s).

Fortunately, a buddy of mine had a spare room and was kind enough to let Iain stay with him.

I fell for him straight away, but he was head over heels with a woman he had met a few days earlier (in San Francisco). It took a while, but after she turned out to be a twit, and another online buddy (without my knowledge) e-mailed him to let him know I really fancied him (if he had asked my permission, I would have said NO!), we ended up getting married in 1999 (just celebrated our 12th anniversary a couple of weeks ago), and that is how I ended up in Sheffield.

I think it worked in our case, because we didn't start off with any big expectations (we weren't looking for partners) and got to know each other as people first.

The other big thing was that both of us were pretty similar in our writing to what we were in person. That is, neither of us gave an impression of ourselves in writing that was a lot different from what we were in person. For example, I knew a another guy who (in his correspondence) was literally Laugh-Out-Loud, side-splittingly funny. It turned out he had spent hours and hours writing, re-writing, revising and polishing the messages he sent, and although he was a perfectly nice fellow, it was simply impossible for him to measure up to the alter-ego he had created. There was no intent to deceive; he just wanted to make what he wrote as entertaining as possible -- but what he wrote was not all that accurate a reflection of what he was like in person.

I suppose it's a bit like dating can be; people want to give a good impression, so (often) they are not really themselves (especially at first), for fear of scaring off the other person. I suspect that's why it often happens that love comes "when you are not expecting it" and/or when you have "given up" on it.

Hmmm, I wonder if my hubbie & I are the "transAtlantic relationship" Folkiedave mentioned (in the original post)...

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 05:43 PM

I agree with you, YY, when I went onto Cafe Tropic, I was merely looking for international contacts for interest and to learn about other countries, I wasn't looking for a partner at all! My husband wasn't either, he wanted contacts abroad for the same reason. Even when we planned to meet up in person, we didn't really have expectations of becoming partners, and I booked separate rooms in the hotel in Ghana. But when you're not desperately searching, you're more relaxed and natural. And you see the real character of the other person as well. What we both liked in eachother was the moral and respectable attitude to life, and the sincerity. We felt we could trust eachother, and we still do. We've never regretted it for a moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 07:07 PM

I guess I'm just an olde tyme romantic. Yep. There's an app, er, song. Yes, a *song* for that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb0CZ4wplek&feature=related

In fact, I was just rehearsing this song on my freshly restrung 12-string guitar. (Twice as many strings, so I only need to play it "half-fast." Geddit? "Halfassed." Bwahhhahaha! Eh, my sense of humor. It's not for everyone. And yes, I coined that one *before* I heerd it on Mudcat!)

OTOH, if I did meet someone online, well, times has changed. I am not a total Luddite.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 07:17 PM

Walt Kelly used 'half-acid' in "The Jack Acid Society Black Book" during the Sen. Joe McCarthy era to satirize his doings.
It's a pretty obvious pun....been known to use it myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Cyber Relationships. are there a lot?
From: DebC
Date: 04 Jun 11 - 12:07 PM

I met my husband online in 1996. We finally met in "real life" in 1997 and I moved in with him in 1998. We married in 2007. Life is great.

Deb