Originally posted by: return_to_hades
I get what you are saying. But you know its never the same as real friends. In Bombay we joke that you have school friends, work friends, neighborhood friends, and bus/train friends. 😆 Heck in college there were a good 5-6 people with whom my friendship was one hour in bus daily. Nowadays you have internet friends. And in internet friends - you have ones you have met and ones you havent. Even in your 'real' friends there are those with whom you are really connected and with those whom you are virtually connected. There are couples out there who met in real life but their 'relationship' exists on fb and twitter. There are couples who spend their evenings sitting on a couch with laptops browsing the net and IM'ing each other. 😆 I used to be skeptical but I have actually seen successful WOW marriages. I worked with a guy who moved from Texas to Wisconsin to be with his fiance from his guild. They got married a couple years back and have been together five years altogether. Their relationship is still more on WOW than irl.
Variety is the spice of life and the internet has added more ingredients. Just like in real life you have to show good judgment in friends and people you associate with same goes in virtual life. Actually I think the internet has been a great blessing for the shy nerdy geeky types who most of the time lack the confidence to communicate in real life. Now a trekkie can hang out in cyberspace with other trekkies and find the uhura to his spock or the kirk to his spock whichever way he swings.
But, Sarina, the similar link between all these examples that you give is that they have met in real life, and that completely changes things. If two people have met in RL, then after that it is their business whether they maintain that relationship on the internet or not.
See, what we're doing here is only considering examples where two people have met in RL and hit it off. What about those who met and had bad experiences? Anyways, I think even after you meet someone face-to-face, it changes things. And it has now the potential to become a full-fledged friendship. But as far as purely virtual friendships go, I think that again, nothing is absolute in this world. People are known to be fake and some are experts at it.
And to support your argument as well, yes, nowadays there are a lot of people who meet in the internet, "fall in love", and get married. It seems all nice and sweet at first, until the divorce kicks in. 😆 Sorry, just speaking of a RL example.
Arjun
