The Virtual Way (Getting To Know Someone)

Is it actually possible to get to know someone well via the various means available on the Internet without actually meeting in real life?

Unfortunately the answer is that it's extremely difficult. The human mind has an amazing ability to be able to assume and imagine things. Your imagination, expectations, and subconscious tend to take over when you are presented with the scant amount of information often found via the Internet. It is so easy to make false assumptions about someone, and one of the biggest lessons you could learn about Internet dating is not to assume anything.

No doubt you will find a profile or meet someone in a chat room that you will think is just perfect, and the person you have been waiting your whole life for. Trust me, it happens to every Internet dater given enough time. Whatever you do you have to resist the temptation to think you have met the person of your dreams. Be enthusiastic and hopeful for sure, but try not to jump to such huge conclusions based on what is essentially very little information.

Through experience you will learn that people usually turn out quite differently in real life to the image you had built up of them via the Internet. This is one of the most common outcomes of meeting someone through the Internet, and really with hindsight it is quite obvious why this is so.

If you have ever had a regular 'blind date', you will most likely have already experienced this. The friend who set you up tells you something about the person, but when you finally meet they end up not being as they had been described. The differences with Internet dating are that you often get to know more details about the person beforehand from their profile and other information. You can also chat and exchange emails for many months before deciding to meet them.

Stay clear of 'virtual relationships' (getting to know and fall in love with someone without meeting), they rarely, if ever work. Getting to know someone requires interaction in the real world face to face, there is no substitute for it. The Internet is a very poor and often misleading alternative.

This, of course, does not mean you cannot get to know and fall in love with someone via the Internet, it's just that it's extremely difficult and statistically not very successful. For the vast majority of people it will not work.

The best advice you can have is to use the Internet as a means of making initial contact, and getting to know someone a little bit, with the ultimate aim of meeting in real life as soon as possible.