Can you love someone you havn't met?

Sure!  I'm pretty sure I love Johnny Depp and I've never met him.

In fact, it's possible to love all kinds of things you've never met - handbags, shoes, money, lipsticks, clothes, etc.

Seriously, though, like historyenne, I need to meet and know someone in real life to feel that I really love them, my children excepted. 

Just my 2p.

Becca, I just noticed your ticker is a little train.... awwww... you must miss him a lot! 

Even though it's a plane ride to get here, Tim works for the rails, and we both share a love for steam, so I thought it was appropriate

Sure!  I'm pretty sure I love Johnny Depp and I've never met him.

In fact, it's possible to love all kinds of things you've never met - handbags, shoes, money, lipsticks, clothes, etc.

LOL!  I think there's a difference between loving as an infatuation, and being in love. (and er, liking something a lot) The Greek gods had three different words for love, depending on what type of love it was. It's a shame we still don't use different words for things.

Sure!  I'm pretty sure I love Johnny Depp and I've never met him.

 

LOL!  I think there's a difference between loving as an infatuation, and being in love. (and er, liking something a lot) The Greek gods had three different words for love, depending on what type of love it was. It's a shame we still don't use different words for things.

I think the point she is trying to make is when the relationship is purely online, you can't be sure if you're in love with a person or an idealized object of your own creation, is all.

It's not that I don't think it's impossible to fall in love with someone you've never met. It's more that until you meet, can you be sure that the person on the other side is the person you're in love with? And I'm not even talking about something crude like lying about age, or appearance or sex (I've seen that happen, btw. Not pretty) but more like when you meet, it is easier to judge if the person who you think he/she is, IS who he/she is, personality-wise.

Like someone mentioned on here (page 1 I think?) I think the love either changes and grows stronger, or it changes and fizzles out once you meet. But meeting people and falling in love isn't particularly a *new* thing, it's just easier to do and more common nowadays with the internet and such.

But it depends on each person, and whether or not it's true love depends on how honest the two people are about each other; if they try to be someone they're not, or show only their best side, then I think it's doomed to fail because you never really fell in love with the real person to begin with--just who they wanted you to believe they were.

And I think it takes a little while to fall in love with a person online; I sometimes frown when people meet and in a week they're omg in love with each other, and they're gonna have babies and stuff, since I think it takes a certain amount of time to get to know the person. That's the crux of the issue with me--if you get to know the person and if they are honest with you, I think you're much more likely to have true love than an infatuation. And of course all bets are off once you meet

I had always fancied my fiance, way back in 2001 and such, but he was married so that was a no-no. But his marriage dissolved, and we started really talking to each other again, and I was older and more mature, and I think he looked at me in a different light. And I was able to look at him from an adult's point of view, and I saw him at his worst when he was going through the divorce and the split of his family, and I still absolutely adored him. Like Steve says, he doesn't need a wife or a girlfriend around--it doesn't make him feel 'complete' just having one around just for the sake of having a wife or girlfriend. He's more than capable of running his house, and his self-esteem isn't dependent on if a girl fancies him--but he says he needs *me* there with him, and that's different.

Sorry for my tangent, my bad 

I think the point she is trying to make is when the relationship is purely online, you can't be sure if you're in love with a person or an idealized object of your own creation, is all.

It's not that I don't think it's impossible to fall in love with someone you've never met. It's more that until you meet, can you be sure that the person on the other side is the person you're in love with? And I'm not even talking about something crude like lying about age, or appearance or sex (I've seen that happen, btw. Not pretty) but more like when you meet, it is easier to judge if the person who you think he/she is, IS who he/she is, personality-wise.

Oh, I completely agree with you. Some people are completely different online and if you fall in love with that persona, and you find out they're real personality is the opposite, it doesn't bode well for a relationship!

But my point with the different types of love is that someone can say they love their internet boyfriend without actually being in love with them.

My husband's & my experience was similar to what Jewlz described about her situation.  We 'met' online and started off as e-mail penpals - we wrote and wrote and wrote (long, lonnnnnnng honest e-mails and letters) about ourselves, then we spoke on the phone and had chat dates.  He went to Florida to meet me for the first time about 3 months after we first started writing, but we made a point to manage our expectations - thinking that we had an attraction from what we knew of each other online, but giving each other an out - that we could just be friends/penpals - if we didn't click.

Once we had met in person, our relationship grew by leaps and bounds the more we were together though.  It was much more difficult to be apart once we had met in person, but we did the LDR for a year - a week here or there every few months.  And then our fairy tale came true. 

However, I had met guys before online - where it totally didn't work out.  And my first husband who I met the pre-internet way - man, we had great sex, but oh god - that man was dumb as a box of rocks.  I knew I finally got it all right with my DH now - we connect on so many different levels, and we really had gotten to know each other's minds before we ever met in person.

And my first husband who I met the pre-internet way - man, we had great sex, but oh god - that man was dumb as a box of rocks. 

MrsR I can always count on you for a good laugh...though next time I'm gonna send you the bill for getting the coffee out of my silk blouse 'cause it came shooting out my nose, AGAIN!

I think ultimately you can be in love with someone online, but whether or not they're really that person IRL is a whole other kettle of fish. You can be in love with the persona, but like Mort says, they can lie about a lot of other stuff beyond just age and appearance and such; they can make themselves out to be really awesome, flawless people, and we fall in love with that, instead of the person they truly are.

I think me and Steve were very honest with each other; he's the type of person where other people's perceptions of him don't really matter, and he doesn't concern himself with that. So, he was more willing to be honest to me about his faults, because he figured if I really loved him, I had to be willing to put up with that stuff as well; if I couldn't, then we weren't meant to be. And there isn't anything that overwhelmingly stands out to me as something I can't live with He's seen me at my worst, and I feel comfortable being able to be myself around him, not just because of the internet but because it's the kind of bloke he is. He's seen me at my most depressed (which is often it seems ), and he knows I have issues, but he's able to live with them.

The key is honesty, so it boils down to each individual person and each individual couple. I've talked to guys online before who have tried to get on my good side, and I was with someone for a year before he got tired of everything and broke up with me. It was a dumb mistake because at first he pretended to be all sweet and loving, but he couldn't keep it up forever and I started to see what he was *really* like, and he got tired of being tied down. Ironically enough, he lived in Texas but couldn't manage a 2 hr flight, but Steve managed 20+ hrs of transit and immigration to come see me

MrsR I can always count on you for a good laugh...though next time I'm gonna send you the bill for getting the coffee out of my silk blouse 'cause it came shooting out my nose, AGAIN!

Always glad to make somebody laugh - but it was the god's honest truth in that case (my first marriage) & I just tell it like it is! 

I met my husband online in a chatroom and went several months without meeting him and we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last June....

I've always believed that it was possible to fall in love with someone through writing, as there are historical stories of how people fell in love through written letters to eachother. In a modern way, I think that the internet has brought this back to life.

I had never been in a LDR or met anyone online who I would have considered dating before I met my DB online. We've fallen deeply in love with eachother, so it is possible to do so. We have not met in person yet, but I do think that it's important for us to do so.

And on the other hand, people can sometimes be more like themselves on the internet; they may be less shy than they are in other social situations, and might be more truthful and forthcoming about themselves without those anxieties getting in the way.

In my case, this is true. Opening up is difficult and awkward for me, but getting to know my DB online made it easy for me to share my true self with him.

The key is honesty, so it boils down to each individual person and each individual couple.

This is very true. It's so important to tell the truth so that there isn't a false perception of who the other person is. I think one of the things I love most about my DB is how honest he is about who he is, hopes and fears included, and I have strived to be honest and open as well.

Like Jewls said on the first page, I've found that being in this kind of relationship has actually helped us to know one another much better, because we've been 'forced' to communicate about so many things without any chance of a physical relationship getting in the way. I've found that the love and attraction I feel for my DB is so much more complete than I've ever known before.

I've always believed that it was possible to fall in love with someone through writing, as there are historical stories of how people fell in love through written letters to eachother. In a modern way, I think that the internet has brought this back to life.

I had never been in a LDR or met anyone online who I would have considered dating before I met my DB online. We've fallen deeply in love with eachother, so it is possible to do so. We have not met in person yet, but I do think that it's important for us to do so.

In my case, this is true. Opening up is difficult and awkward for me, but getting to know my DB online made it easy for me to share my true self with him.


This is very true. It's so important to tell the truth so that there isn't a false perception of who the other person is. I think one of the things I love most about my DB is how honest he is about who he is, hopes and fears included, and I have strived to be honest and open as well.

Like Jewls said on the first page, I've found that being in this kind of relationship has actually helped us to know one another much better, because we've been 'forced' to communicate about so many things without any chance of a physical relationship getting in the way. I've found that the love and attraction I feel for my DB is so much more complete than I've ever known before.

That's great, jw66! I am sure it will be amazing when you do get to meet in person. That was so exciting for us. Do you have a date set for that yet?

I know it is not always possible to meet early in the relationship, but I think it is important to meet as soon as you possibly can to consolidate the relationship, or to be able to move on if it turns out not to have the same spark in person. (not direted at anyone in particular).

I corresponded with my husband for two years before we met in person. When we first struck up a conversation, neither one of us had the slightest desire for a real-life relationship. In fact, I only felt comfortable writing him because he lived thousands of miles away and couldn't possibly mistake my attention for flirtation.

Pff! Idiot.

That said, falling in love and developing a stable long-term relationship are two different things. The first is no guarantee of the second.