Byaina the Tulip wrote:
I see two different issues at hand, here. One is RP, and that's always extremely sketchy - whether you care for the person or their character, or whether, in truth, you're in love with the writing itself.
I have been on the receiving end of that myself before, waaay back when I used to rp with round 30 people on Yahoo! messanger/chat rooms. Girl fell in love with my writing style (if you read my stories, you will see I have a tendency to go explore more emotional aspects of things), yet couldn't tell me if I was left or right handed, what made me smile, made me sad, or anything about me. She could only tell me my name, my asl, and a few minor things. So I fully agree with that.
Byaina the Tulip wrote:
Unfortunately, the tendency to get sucked into something is magnified in the types of people who play online games in the first place. You get in over your head, because why are you here, in this game? You want to believe in something that's fun, that's good, that's wonderful. Love isn't part of the game, but you're already in the mindset of suspending disbelief and the laws of reality. It's just another step for that, and harder to keep your head about you.
I don't know about that...
I have met a whole lot of people in this game, and while a lot do suspend disbelief and the laws of reality, not all do.
I do agree with the whole idea of having to meet face to face though.
*shrugs*
If I said "I love you" to someone here, it isn't really real. Just words hurtling through cyberspace to someone is what it amounts to. Pixels, 0's and 1's.
My friends who date online, I think it is wonderful that they found happiness that way. I don't understand how they can pledge themselves to each other without even having felt each other's caress, but then again, I am not him/her.
I believe that if you are going to truly love someone, you gotta meet up with them eventually, and let them see your strengths and weaknesses in person. I can make myself out to be without weakness online to someone if I wanted to, and like Byaina said, romance the girl rather quickly.
"We are all writers, showing to people what we want them to see of us." A close friend of mine told me that once, and I see how that is true constantly. It is a he[br][/br]ll of a lot harder to hide your true self in rw than in vr.
So that is why I believe you gotta meet up before you can truly say "I love you" (as ********* type of love) with all of the connotations that lies within the phrase. Everything else is just...distant, even unreal...