Is Love Online Possible? Could it be Real?

Consuelo is my grandmother. She is almost 90 years old and usually tells me that the world and people are not the same as in her youth. I usually reply by asking why she thinks that, and her answer is always the same, “People are here without being here, always glued to their cellphones.” I can say that I may understand my grandma’s point of view. You just need to see a family reunion. After 5 to 10 minutes of talking, at least one of her daughters or grandchildren start to check their phones and get lost in it. We need to realize there are people who don’t use them. I know it is hard to believe, but people like my grandma who didn’t grow up with smartphones consider this rude and disrespectful and it may be that she just doesn’t understand how to use a phone or has a different mindset about modern socialization and connection, or perhaps we really are the ones who are losing ourselves in the virtual world.

Reality shows us that more and more people spend most of their time online due to work, studies, entertainment, social media, business, you name it. Since COVID-19 and the lockdown, companies and schools that weren’t originally designed for online interactions were transformed to incorporate one in order to keep up with the times. Now we are “free” again, and even though COVID is still here with numerous, more aggressive variants, thanks to massive vaccination efforts we are returning to “normal life.” This pandemic reminded us of our social nature as human beings, which means that we need to be connected with others, and technology can help make this possible.

The new reality of “normal life” teaches us a double moral lesson, that we need connection but should still be concerned with our own safety. Perhaps what my grandma doesn’t understand is the fact that we can create connections beyond our neighborhoods. We may have friends and coworkers overseas, even on the opposite side of the world, people that we may love as if they were our own family, people that we may not have physically met, but with whom we have strong emotional connections, sometimes even stronger relationships than with our own relatives.

This didn’t only start with the onset of COVID-19. Perhaps we can go all the way back to 1973 when Doug Brown and David Woolley invented the “Talkomatic”, the first online chat, which is probably the earliest predecessor of chats and social media as we know it nowadays. Even before that time, people have always been looking for ways to be connected and to facilitate communication.

When I was a teenager between 14 and 15 years old, my mom used to tell me that online chats made me a target, exposing my personal information. She told me it was dangerous, and it really could be, but when you are a teenager you love the forbidden. So, like any other introverted kid who likes adventures, I started to explore online chats. Meeting people around the world with different beliefs, perspectives, cultures, etc., was just delightful. I met people with good and bad intentions, people who wanted to have virtual sex, ones who used others like a therapist, people who pretended to be whomever they wanted to be in their own fantasy environment, people who just wanted company, people looking for love, those who just wanted to be heard, people wanting to play board games and others who looked for a match based on interests to find friendship, which was my case.

After some years interacting with all kinds of people who use the online chats or social media, I realized there are major things to watch out for: there are people out there with nefarious intentions, sometimes pretending to be someone else, (be careful to not get catfished), and the second is that even when there are millions of people online, you can’t have a real connection with them all. Like in the real world, even when you are surrounded by thousands of people, you might still feel alone.

We always have an agenda, whether we are looking for love, avoiding loneliness, wanting to interact with others far away, whether we are looking for amusement, or trying to fulfill social needs, etc. One of the first things you have to do when you meet someone, virtually or face to face, is to discover their real intentions. When you clarify them, you can decide if you want to continue the relationship or not, gearing interactions around the type of relationship you are looking for, if you desire to establish one. These relationships can be fleeting or could last a lifetime.

When the intention is to love and be loved, or to have a real friendship, I learned one needs to be open and honest about it. If you want the relationship to grow you will need to invest a lot of your time with that person to build a strong and durable relationship. When it is an online relationship, this is even more necessary because the “dates” will become long chats on the phone even until you fall asleep. It is difficult to maintain that kind of relationship but it is not impossible.

I once had a boyfriend for 5 years, whom I started dating online and after we met in person, but we were living in different countries so our in-person interactions were limited. At the end, we ended the relationship because we realized we were looking to live different, incompatible lifestyles. I don’t regret the experience as I learned and matured with him, and it is fun to see how destiny works because he led me to meet my husband, also online, but that story we will leave for later.

For now, a short answer to the lingering question regarding whether love online is possible or real is yes, it is possible, but will require extra effort to make it work, but establishing it and letting it run naturally should not feel forced, with faith and trust.

~

Maria Sonntag - Mexico