Is it really possible to fall in love with a person online?

What do you mean how? Through talking, through gmail, through webcams, through people falling in love. I have fallen in love online with my current partner.

Nope.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I meant just as you answered it, how can two people get to know each other so closely?

Yes. It’s entirely possible. Whether or not you can maintain it at a distance is a different matter.

No, it is not possible. Too much of the dimensions of real relationships are missing, You do not know how the other person smells or tastes or looks.

You cannot have shared experiences.

I sent your question to rooeytoo. She did and moved around the world to be with him.

@chels and @richardhenry met here on Fluther, fell in love and got married. But it doesn’t often work out that way.

You can meet through online but you have to actually be willing and able to have a relationship in real life otherwise what is the point. If you can’t seem to get together with the other person then its just not going to work out no matter what you feel for the person they are just in your imagination until they become a reality by meeting in person and actually getting to know the real person.

I met my husband in a chatroom. We talked/chatted for 14 hours straight the first night. It went on for weeks until we finally spoke on the phone. We spoke on the phone for quite awhile, I had my police friends do a background check on him and we met in person. It was in love with him before I laid eyes on him to be honest. That was nearly 10 years ago and we are still going strong.

I liken it to penpals of a bygone era. We actually communicated and got to know each other first. Amazing really. It was meant to be.

It’s possible, I suppose, but at some point you have to meet each other. In the meantime, all that’s going on is that you’re building an image of your beloved in your own mind that may not be based on that beloved’s reality

Been there, done that.

Gee, some mixed answers here.
I’m so glad some people have a good strong relationship though, that’s what I was after.

I think it’s entirely possible to at least lay the groundwork for falling in love. Probably meeting in person (probably more than once) is the thing that either cements it into actual love, or where it all falls apart.

@queenie just be careful. There are many pitfalls and dangers involved with meeting someone from the Internet. Again, be careful and safety first.

Well it’s possible to fall in love with someone you have met online and you eventually meet in real life. I have twice. The first time I had a 9 year relationship and 2 kids with the guy. Now I’m with another person I happened to meet online. I never met them on dating sites, just comic or other sites.

I find it baffling how people can say something isn’t possible just because it didn’t happen to them but has clearly happened in the history of the world. @marinelife Blind and deaf and mute people have none of those experiences you deem necessary for love but they have certainly loved and do, every day.

I married a woman I met online. She is the most wonderful woman I have ever met.

I met my SO online, and that was over 4 years ago.
<<That guy

Yes, it is possible, and it happens frequently these days.

An American co-worker met his love by signing up on a pen-pal site. The person that responded was Russian and spoke no English, nor did he speak Russian. Their e-mail exchanges needed to go through a translation service. Despite the odds, they fell in love. The couple adore each other.

My brother met his second wife via an online dating site. While it took meeting in person to seal the deal, we met her shortly after they met in person, and it was clear that they had very strong feelings for each other based upon internet exchanges.

I met my British fiancé online. If interested in the background, you can read my profile for the details. All I can say is that I fell in love with him based upon IM’s and e-mail exchanges. The initial and subsequent meetings in person only solidified what was already known.

@Pied_Pfeffer Agree, as @augustlan mentioned, the meeting (and it took only one) simply strengthened our love, a love that was already there and is as intense now as it was online.

To think you are in love when having never met IMO is pure fantasy. If you meet someone online or from afar and develop feelings that are then validated with live in person interaction and courtship, then yes falling in love is possible.

I think @augustlan is on to something. It lays the groundwork. You really get to know a person, assuming you are both being reasonably honest. I think you can really grow to care about someone, but I think that physical interaction is necessary to really be in love.

@ANef_is_Enuf Meh, I figure if the intense intellectual connection is there, the physical part can be worked out. Some people, I think, really connect over mind-fucking each other, so to speak. With my partner, when we saw each other, we were already so far gone into one another…that we became each other’s physical types even if we weren’t so before.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I just think that it is the little things that really make being “in love” what it is. Recognizing the way someone jingles their keys or knowing their scent so well that you don’t even have to open your eyes to know it is them.
I do think the groundwork can be laid. I think that you can become incredibly close. I just think that my definition of “in love” might be a little bit different from the average persons’ definition.

@ANef_is_Enuf I think definitions of love can vary, yes. Though it is the first time someone implied I am an average person. It’s refreshing, lol

You can become infatuated. You never know who you are dealing with until you meet the person irl.

@jonsblond True, even in general. You can know someone but never really know them. I don’t feel like the online thing makes that more likely, though.

@jonsblond Even then…buyer beware.

@Cruiser I fell in love with Milo. Did you know he was a cat? ugh!

“To think you are in love when having never met IMO is pure fantasy. If you meet someone online or from afar and develop feelings that are then validated with live in person interaction and courtship, then yes falling in love is possible”.

I agree with that %100.

Maybe I should have expanded on my original post. My SO and I started using a web-cam instead of e-mail to communicate. It is only one step closer to getting to know someone better without physically being together. Imagine spending 2–8 hours straight daily talking to someone you are interested in without any outside interruptions other than an occasional bathroom break. A tremendous amount of personal information comes out, including the nuances of how a person lives, reacts in certain situations, etc.

I have observed people fall in love armed with less information than we had. For example, my sister decided to marry her husband because she wanted someone to take care of her once she graduated from college. He wanted to marry her because she was the skinniest girl on campus. It has lasted over 25 years, but they had to go through a painful learning process along the way.

With us, most of those hurdles have been overcome. By meeting in person and meeting each others’ families, it has only confirmed the details that have already been given. It has also provided an opportunity to learn about a handful of idiosyncrasies that might not otherwise have been discovered. But the same applies in any relationship.

It’s a land rife with fantasy and it sucks you in and you believe it and then you find you are being used and it was all pretty much a lie.

It’s a land rife with fantasy and it sucks you in and you believe it and then you find you are being used and it was all pretty much a lie

^^Woah, what happened there?

lmao…having fun. @wundayatta spoke the truth. I just had to repeat it.

So um, what “aphrodisiacs” art thou eating darling monarch-ie? Do tell us more.

Is it really possible? But of course yes. Who can tell you that is not love you are feeling when you feel sublime and floating in the joyful air. Meeting and falling in love online may have advantages over meeting in person. You get a chance to know each other better before you even begin to dislike one another as it happens when people do actual shallow dates.

There are pros and cons to everything so just know the pitfalls and heed warning signs. In short don’t be stupid. But once you did your assignment, there’s no reason why you should not take advantage of having a romantic relationship with someone who just happens to be physically far from you. IMO.

I became best friends with my wife-to-be online. We’ve been married going on four years now, and I love her with all my heart.

How’s that? : )

It’s possible. I met my now fiancé on myspace. He is the sweetest most caring person I have ever met. We have been together since July 24, 2009.
And I love him more and more everyday.

Yep we fell in love online, it wasn’t our intention, but it crept up on us! In some ways we knew each other better than those who are face to face. We learned to know and love each other’s soul before anything else. In real life sometimes bodies meet before brains and that isn’t always a good thing.

Anyhow here we are, we have been together physically for going on 13 years and it has been over 15 since we first started chatting!

@rooeytoo

Yayyy! : ))

Yes.

If two like minded individuals go into it with their eyes & minds wide open & not get carried away on a tide of fantasy, then yeah i’d imagine so. After all, anything’s possible! :¬)

For me the question is about the distinction between LOVE and INFATUATION. I certainly think you can be totally infatuated with someone and driven to meet them in person, and that infatuation can last a long time and when you meet, become a real love. I don’t know that you can love someone you haven’t yet met although I think it can have just the same angst and excitement and exhilaration as infatuation in a face-to-face situation. I am not downplaying the strength of feeling people can have in an online relationship, I am just not sure I would call it love.

Yes, very possible. I can’t add much to what has already been said above.

@rooeytoo explained it well in one sentence: We learned to know and love each other’s soul before anything else.

I find that the intellectual meeting, and bonding, of two souls is incredibly strong – being in the same space is not necessary. Falling, and staying, in love with someone’s mind is very possible.

@Bellatrix – I don’t know what you would feel but we called what we felt and still feel, undoubtedly, unequivocally love!

Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t read very throroughly. I thought you meant falling in love with only online contact, of course if you meet through the internet, you can fall in love.

Using the internet as a communication tool, has been used many times for people to become involved in a relationship, somewhere down the road.

Talking to each other here, brings out the inner most thoughts of a person.

Relaying these thoughts can be like cupid.

No. Because truly falling in love requires touch and smell.

@mattbrowne So you’re of the opinion (slightly less problematic than @marinelife)‘s that the blind, deaf and mute people CAN love but only if there’s touching and smelling involved? How can any of us state what’s ‘truly falling in love’ is about? It’s like telling each other what gender is about. Oh wait, we do that too. Stupid us.

Wow, I am going to quickly go tell my husband that we aren’t really in love, it’s just an illusion, heheheh. And when I tell him it is because I couldn’t smell him, he will really get a kick out of it!

@rooeytoo

LMAO! Now, now. Be nice. : )

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – Well, first of all I think it’s possible to have an online crush. It’s probably quite common. It happens here on Fluther. In the real world we seem to rely on sights and sounds first, when it comes to developing a crush (for deaf people sights, for blind people sounds). Yet falling in love goes far beyond this and from what I know touch and smell are crucial. Our unconscious mind seems to tell who smells right and wrong as shown in a study done by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_Wedekind – and touch seems to be our primary love language, see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptic_communication#Love.2Fintimacy

I think this is wonderful news to deaf and blind people as well, because they rely more extensively on their olfactory and haptic sense experiencing smell and touch more intensely.

@mattbrowne It seems like this theory is backwards. I’ve met men who I’ve been attracted to based upon their touch and possibly their scent. There are a few that resulted in a crush. They never went as far as falling in love, no matter how long the relationship lasted. Both of the the links you provided speak to attraction and arousal, but not about falling in love.

My SO and I shared an incredible amount of personal information via the internet for six months before we met in person. The US co-worker who had a Russian e-mail pen-pal proposed to her the first time he went to meet her and the family. Granted, in both of our cases, the actual meetings, which included smell and touch, might have resulted in some sort of deal-breaker, but it didn’t.

@Pied_Pfeffer – I was talking about a necessary but not sufficient condition. Of course touch and smell might keep it a crush without falling in love.

And pen-pals exchanging rich emails for months can actually come very close to falling in love, but the final decision to form a serious real partnership still depends on the first physical meetings, right?

@mattbrowne As for the other couple who only exchanged e-mails before meeting, I can only go on what they told me: their physical meeting was confirmation of some facts that had already been shared. It built upon the foundation that was already there. She had a chaperone the whole time.

In the case of my SO and me, now that we have spent quality time in each other’s company, the internet is a poor substitute. Anyone in a successful relationship who moves past the internet would surely say the same thing.

Yes, that makes sense to me @Pied_Pfeffer.

@mattbrowne I knew you were going to throw studies in my direction, lol, it seems that’s the way you navigate the world, studies and stats. Love isn’t about that, however and no matter how much research one does into love, that research will NEVER come close to explaining how it ALL works because our research into the brain, especially, is pretty much poking around in the dark (save for lighting up a few spots here and there for ‘proof’ of one phenomenon or another where there isn’t even consensus out there as to what constitutes a brain region being actually activated). People who do not have some of the senses, I believe you’ll agree, do not participate in the world in the same way that others who do have those senses. Their brains and bodies are more than capable of compensation for things they lack – you should really read less wikipedia and more about disability movements and disability studies. That way you’ll learn about people loving using their hearts and their minds and that has nothing to do with crushes.

The king of wiki has spoken! It is extremely impudent of mere mortals to disagree!

I guess I’ve been thoroughly flutherized for the past two years, @Simone_De_Beauvoir, with battalion after battalion of Jelly infantry screaming “anecdotal evidence” ;-)

So I see you point!

@rooeytoo – I think you might like this quote:

The beginning of thought is in disagreement – not only with others but also with ourselves.—Eric Hoffer

Thank you so much for answering everyone!
I know I love you guys ;)

@mattbrowne – I disagree and argue with myself constantly, there is always a battle in my head. It is exhausting being me.

So yep, very appropriate quote, thank you.

I will further investigate Eric Hoffer in Wikipedia! :-)