Love Online

Hey friends,

Wow! Has it been two weeks already? I know my last post was very short sweet and to the point, and I should have been taking all of the precious free time I’ve been given to write a truly elaborate story, but the truth is- I’ve really been enjoying not doing much of anything. It’s been really nice not having to worry about being somewhere or having a deadline for a project or a paper looming over my head.

I have TRULY taken the whole “chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool” to heart.

Anyways — with all that being said— I have also been very present on dating apps — and so have the guys, which isn’t surprising, what better time to hit girls up than now, when time is truly all we have? The only down side, we can’t meet up in person.

So because of the current circumstances, all of the chatting and no meeting up, it got me reminiscing on my days of internet dating. Yes, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I made some silly mistakes a long the way, and I’m pretty against it now just because of personal experience, but I seriously think it truly depends on the person. We also have to consider the fact that I was internet dating back in my teens (early 2000s), which the internet wasn’t as close knit as it is now. People are able to remain closer without being close now more than they were back then.

Anyways so there were a couple of guys who I talked to online, I met them either through yahoo Pool chat or the glorious MySpace days!

I would talk to them into all hours of the night. I used to be a huge internet junkie, knew all the latest and greatest HTML coding tricks, so my profiles looked the coolest and I had the best selfies bc a girl knows her good angles (some things never change). I utilized platforms like AOL instant messenger, yahoo pool chat, myspace, Xanga (a blog type website), ETC.

One of these relationships ended in us meeting up and not hitting it off and the other relationship, well we never met and we are still online friend. The lost track of the one I actually met in person, and the other that I haven't is now married and I am full on happy for him and the man he has turned into and the life he has created for himself. It’s pretty cool to say I’ve been in contact with someone for so many years without ever having met them.

Internet dating is weird tho, bc in my experience you never truly know someone until you kick it with them in person. It kind of makes me think of the whole Love is blind scenario because even if you're face-timing and can see pictures of them on the internet and you get to a point where you know you aren't being catfishes-- you still don’t truly know someone until you meet them face-to-face.

I was 19 when I decided to go on a journey across the pond to meet the "love of my life". I had been corresponding with him for 2-3 years prior and he was from England. I truly felt like I had met my “soulmate”, because we connected over the song "Hey There Delilah" and back then I was way more of a dreamer than I am now, so when I told my friends and family that I had purchased round trip plane ticket to meet this guy for the first time and basically live with him for the entire summer— you can imagine how crazy everyone thought I was— but not surprised, because I’ve always been a free spirit and the kind of person that has to experience things for herself to learn from her mistakes; so I never make them twice.

Anyways, so I fly out there and meet this guy and it was like living in a fairytale for a while until the reality of the situation started setting in and all of our idiosyncrasies started to bubble to the surface and we started to realize how a) it wasn’t going to work in the long term bc of the distance and b) even if the distance weren’t a factor, we annoyed the ever living shit out of one another—I remember SEVERAL nights crying my eyes out and feeling like Dorothy from the wizard of oz, wishing I could click my heels 👠 and just go home. He wasn't very understanding of this and would sometimes even tell me to "quit my whingin" which essentially translates to shut up the crying. There were several times we got in drunk fights because he would flirt with other girls in front of me on nights out, or would stay out into all ours of the night while I sat at his flat waiting for him to get home from "work".

All that being said, I wasn't the shining example of a girlfriend either. I was SOOOOO immature, insecure, annoying, etc etc. I was so young and didn't truly understand what I wanted in life, much less a relationship and I was really cowardly back then and I waited until I got all the way back home to end things with said guy that I had been living with for 6 weeks through an instant message text. Yes, AIM — and I just know that had to make him feel so shitty and insignificant to me bc I didn’t have the balls to do it in person and to be honest with him about my feelings when we were still together.

So long and short, my days of long term internet dating were not successful and I learned through that experience they are also not something I’ll ever be willing to put myself through again.

If you decide you would like to try out the whole internet dating thing — go for it, but just keep in mind that there are certain things about a human being that you cannot experience unless you’re with them in person, and you will never truly know who they are until you spend a lot of quality time with them and figure them out, and even then we sometimes truly only scratch the surface.

Also, making connections online today can also be really risky just because it makes it a lot earlier for predators to hide behind a lie until it’s too late. So if you do decide to pursue internet dating, app dating— be smart about it and ALWAYS let at least one person know where you are going, who you’re going to see, and share your location with them at all times— just Incase!

I will say-- I do still utilize apps and text messaging to get to know someone, but I think the sooner you meet them the better (after you've vetted them out and know you're not being cat-fished) so you don't prolong the emotional connection, only to wind up realizing you don't have any physical chemistry to go along with it. THAT SUCKS.

I am signing off for now, I hope you all are being safe and doing your part in staying isolated so as not to spread the virus. There's always FaceTime/video chat so that you can get to know someone before actually meeting up (since we shouldn't really be doing that anyways).

Until next time,

xoxo SLG