Long Distance Online - real or fantasy?

[Methos]

Hey all .. something struck me recently and I'm interested in other's take on it. It's my experience that most people in LDRs met in person first and then had to use online as a way to maintain the connection over distance and time. Mine is the other way around as I've mentioned previously. We met online and after about 2 years, finally met in person. A few months ago, we met again and plan to again next month too. Now, here's the thing. Only recently did I discover that she has this, "thing" about anything done online. Not until we had been together in person twice and after a lot of thinking and actually, "studying" did I uncover this truth. She views anything online as, "not real." The way she treats me online is almost like a TV. If she doesn't like the program, just change the channel or even turn it off. She ignores texts sometimes, she will log off without saying good-bye. I mean, at times it's downright rude. But I'm not the only one she is like this with so I know it's not about me specifically. I mean, she won't even put her mic on and speak when we're on skype. By contrast, when we're together in person, she speaks (obviously!) and she answers my calls and we have a great time together. Then .. I'll go back home and we're back online and all we built together is gone .. now it's back to, "unreal."

The more I thought about this, I began to reflect on my first trip to Europe. I had read about these places in history class, seen stories on the news but in truth, they were just stories. Not until I set foot on the ground did the stories come to life and become, "real." Seeing the bomb damage in London from Germany's attacks in WWII .. standing so close to the Mona Lisa that I could reach out and touch it .. things like that "did something" in my mind and heart. it was as if something inside me said, "Yes John .. this IS real after all." Anyone else relate to that? But then .. after 2 weeks there .. I came home and it wasn't long before the experiences faded to memories and the memories eventually transformed into, "Did this really happen? It seems like a dream."

I believe that's what happens with us too. If I could spend more time with her .. things would be different. But this hit and run stuff, it's just not enough to puncture that real/fantasy barrier that's there. A friend suggested buying her something like a robe or sweater and hug her while putting it on her .. so that when she wears it she will feel that hug and it will somehow connect with me being real. Any other suggestions/thoughts? Anyone else found themselves in this place? Until we can get past this, everytime we meet will simply be a moment of reality before returning to fantasyland.

Thanks again!

[differentcountries]

I have left clothes behind, and books that I made, some with pictures of us in it. And gifts, like jewlery and even the LDR bracelet. Things are very helpful when you are apart. Also, I like to bring food and receive his food gifts. Every time I use olive oil I think of him. Every time I drink tea I think of Turkey. I like to give him cakes to eat after I am gone.

[Methos]

That's cool. Last time I was there, I had given her a musicbox that I made for her with one of her favorite songs in it. When We talk online, I see it on her dresser in the background. It's nice but .. still not enough. There's something in her mind (and others from what I have found) that there is just a disconnect between online and in person.

Hmmm .. I like the food idea. Her favorite treat is rafaellos. There's a place online where I can order them and have delivered to her .. maybe this time I'll give her some in person and then every so often, I'll send her some to make that connection.

[kittyo9]

I have thought about this a lot-- my SO and I met online to begin with and, like you, only met in person after being together for about 2 years online. It's been so long since our last visit that sometimes I forget it's real.

However, I think that the way you approach relationships online has a lot to do with how you maintain and view those relationships. For example, my SO and I both view interactions with other people online as very real-- after all, you are communicating directly with another human being in the present time. With history, you are being told a story about something that happened and being shown pictures to document it. With people, you are not being told a story about them; you are talking directly to them! Some people don't feel this way, though, and it results in what you described above. I think viewing our relationship as just as real as any other has helped us maintain it for so long.

[nerdgasm42]

I like the idea of giving your SO something to remember you by when you have to be apart. I also met my SO online. He is in the Air Force, and before he went home from our first meeting, he left me a set of his dog tags. I wear them every day, and it helps, it really does. I keep thinking, trying to figure out what I can give him to remember me by, but I can't think of anything I want to offer him some sort of comfort, like I have.

Anyways, best wishes in figuring out everything, Methos.

[silvermoonfairy3]

My SO and I are the opposite.. we keep in touch with lots of people online, and are part of forums (like this one, and others) where we only know the people from the internet. But we've formed closed friendships with people we've never met in person, and consider them very real connections.

I think it's in how you treat it. If you and the other online party both take it seriously, putting time and effort and commitment into the other person, then it can feel just as 'real' that it's happening.

Have you talked to her about how you feel when she treats the online stuff as not 'real' and just leaves without saying goodbye, etc?

[squeeker]

I think it's important to think of your relationship as real when you are apart. If you take a lot of pictures together you can look at them and remember that it wasn't just a dream. If you talk every day or as regularly as fits your schedule (and if it's not often, find other ways to show you are thinking about them when you apart). I like the leaving things behind thing, because I've left many things behind with my boyfriend and brought things (especially clothes that were bought in the UK) and so that helps. And I like drinking Yorkshire Tea or Twinings tea or other British packaged tea to feel closer to him when we apart. I do get that if she doesn't use a mic on skype... I mean I was nervous when my boyfriend and I first used that.. but that was before we met, and then I got comfortable with it before we met, and it's nice.. I also talk to other people online on forums like this and others. I realized hey I'm a real person and these other people are real too. Especially after I met my boyfriend in person, but I remember with that first visit, we both kept saying how much it felt like a dream. If we didn't have pictures or other proof, it would have been hard to believe it actually happened probably. :P

I think you should try and talk to her about how it makes you feel that she doesn't see your relationship when you are apart as real.. maybe encourage her to get a good mic or something because you want to hear her voice.. or if she doesn't want to.. maybe she could record videos or herself speaking for you if it would help her, if it's anxiety that is keeping her from doing so.. though hopefully then with time she will feel more comfortable. Just keep encouraging her to use her mic? Good luck.. online relationships and friendships are very real.. and you have met so you know she is who she says she is I'm hoping.

[AussieAmericanGirl66]

We met online 4 years ago, and have yet to visit each other. But we share everything with each other, have been passionately intimate on Skype, know how we look and sound, have laughed, flirted, and cried together. He's taken me with him to places he goes, via Skype. We send photos to each other. The only "fantasy" aspects left are the fantasies we share for foreplay. But, it does get frustrating sometimes in a lonely moment, to not actually be able to touch each other, hold each other, make physical love. Even so, we feel each other's energy, and turn each other on from a distance. So, is it real? It is for us. As real as we can make it. The feelings are real, our communication is real, our connection is real, and our LOVE is VERY real.

[ldrxoxo]

I met mine from online first also! And we have yet to meet in person. I don't know when we will meet in person but it's really taking a toll on me, especially since we just started talking in January. I never believed I could like someone so much online like I have to see someone in person first to see if I would like him, but then I met him. He doesn't treat me like I'm not real. I feel like he can't handle the distance so he thinks it's okay to ignore me sometimes since we can't see each other anyway. A friend told me a horror story how he talked to someone from online all year and they never met, ever.

When we would talk, we would talk as if we were anyone else that we would see in person. I felt like I knew him already in person but I remember I haven't met him yet. And since you said it took you and yours 2 years to meet, man, that might be the same for me, who knows? I don't have that long to wait! Ahhh...I have nothing better to do and no other interest from in person who compares to him so I will wait if I need be.

Whenever we would Skype, he would never actually say words to me either which I thought was weird, but he'd laugh and I'd hear him laughing and he'd smile and all that. We'd just use to keyboard to type and we text. I haven't heard his voice yet but he's heard mine. I asked him if I could hear his voice when we were in an argument one day. I said I hated talking in text with him about this for him to call me but he will only talk to me in text. Yep, it's going on 5 months and I've never heard his freaking voice, but his laugh is cute.

We don't treat each other like we're not real, in fact it's the total opposite. When we were talking he would always used to say to me how he bets he would have so much fun hanging out with me in person. It's just that the distance is too much and we don't have the resources right now to pursue it.

[melarie]

I get the fantasy feeling sometimes, where my mind just goes "Wow, what? Is this all real?" But it doesn't affect how I see the relationships in terms of seriousness or realness, or how I treat him. Are you guys exclusive? Because the first thing that came to my mind was, if she can just "change the channel" as you said and just kind of end the conversation with no warning, does she act like or acknowledge that she has a boyfriend in her everyday life?

[Methos]

Wow! Looks of cool responses so far and lots to think about!

I can't get into too much detail in a public forum like this but let's just say that she has an, "added block" that affects how she sees online interactions. Let's just say that she sees them ALL as, "unreal" because of this conditioning and then I came along and .. even though we have met a couple times, it's hard to break out of that mindset completely when there's been years of conditioning to see ALL as unreal, ya know? Wish I could say more.

Taking pictures - we have a few but I was never big into pictures. And since we're so far apart and my time there was so short, I wanted to spend it being in the moment WITH her, not so much trying to capture the moment for later, ya know? That said, this next time (hopefully mid-June) I will take more pics and video. I actually make videos of us, our different times online and set them to music. She LOVES them. I made one not long ago when she was going for surgery and I was trying desperately to get over there to be with her. It combines our online with in person videos and .. well, what the heck, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWVqcnt4gZg

Talking at the mic .. that's a kind of .. I don't know what that is. ) Her native language is Românian but she speaks english VERY well. I make the attempt to speak in her language sometimes .. she laughs because of my accent but I know she appreciates that I try. We've had some funny moments .. for example, when I try to say, "lamaie" she said it sounds like, "la muie!" (I'll let you translate that and see why it's so funny! Lol) But she has this thing about speaking online. In person, there were times also when we would be in public and she would ask me to be quiet for a moment. When I asked, she explained that there is a kind of stigma in România .. that if a girl is speaking english to an American guy .. especially one that is older, it MUST mean that she is .. (fill in the blanks). Her impression of what others think of her is VERY important but I don't see how this is a problem when we're online together and alone. Minor issue .. not a big deal but, it's all part of this, "block."

I have also taken my laptop with me to show her around .. take her for a drive and put the cam so it's like she's in the seat next to me, took her to the Skywalk at the Prudential Center in Boston and showed her the view of the city from above. it's funny, there must have been hundreds of people there and there I was, sitting on the ledge with my laptop, laughing and having a great time. It must have looked silly! ) But to me, it's like she was right there.

As far as us being, "exclusive" .. technically, we're not even bf/gf. This too is, I believe .. partly as a result of this sense of unreality she has to online stuff. In some ways, we are closer than anyone. I can look into this girls eyes and know what she's feeling before she tells me. We've had MANY special moments together. For example, one time she called me on skype because she was feeling sad about her dad (he died a couple years ago). We talked a little, listened to some music together. After she said, "I'm glad you were here. I always feel better after speaking with you." She could have gone to anyone .. her mom, her best friend .. but she came to me, some guy on the other side of the world. So in THAT way, I'm real enough to her .. but those moments don't tend to carry us and I keep flipping back and forth between real and unreal, or so it seems to me. Damn I wish I could explain more! It would make it much clearer. Anyway, she HAS told me that to her, nothing really, "moves" her when it comes to online stuff. And I believe that is the reason she says she has no real feelings for me. She has no feelings of any kind about anything online. But when we're together in person .. it's like I completely screw with her sense of everything because now, I'm right in her face .. this unreal, online just "words on the screen" personality .. is flesh and blood. And I can see in her eyes .. there's DEFINITELY something there. She's had moments when I haven't been around and she found herself scared that something happened. Once she went so far as to call the American Embassy! Lol I laughed but she was really worried .. maybe moreso by the feelings she was experiencing for this, "unreal" person. And others have seen it too. A friend told me once, after watching one of our videos, "Look at the way she looks at you! It's like she adores you." Her words, not mine! Lol!

Anyway, this is all good stuff as it's helping unravel this whole, "is it real" issue. I mean, to a certain degree, I get it too. Like I said, I went to London and it was VERY real. But now when I watch the news and see things there, it's like, a step removed. After my second trip to Bucureşti, things were DEFINITELY different because instead of a brand new experience, it was like visiting an old friend. OH!!! I just thought of something! I had cousins who lived a few states away .. we would only see them like, every few years. And THEY seemed almost unreal to me when we weren't together. There really is something about this .. maybe it's the need for actual, physical contact to make it more real and then find a way to trigger that feeling when you're not with the person to keep that with you. Hmmm ...

[Secrecy]

I get that sometimes - I met my SO online as well, through a mutual game we played. It took just almost a year (eleven months and some odd number of days) for me to actually meet him in person, and it was about six months until I ever even heard his voice. I can say that while having a relationship online doesn't necessarily mean it's not a real relationship, I can say that for any LDR to work, there needs to be some kind of human element there - you need to talk, you need to be able to see each other, you need to be able to have that human-to-human connection that all people do. It's why I find it amazing my boyfriend and I lasted six months without even a word to each other, and I'm so very glad it did. I don't consider mine an "online" relationship so much as we do very little socializing online nowadays, and do it mostly through the phone, besides the rare instance when he's actually on the priorly mentioned game we used to play, or when we Skype once a week. I just consider it just a regular "long distance relationship" now. That being said, just because it's over distance, the memories in my head of us physically together are vivid and real, as are the feelings and emotions and thoughts and decisions I have about him and our relationship as a whole, and it's that that solidifies what we are in our relationship as "real." What concerns me about you is that your SO doesn't seem to have those things - once you leave, she treats your relationship as something easily looked over and seems distant from it because there's no physical evidence of it there. I think, as I said before, you need to try to put the human element back in your relationship even over distance - it's hard to feel truly 100% connected to someone when they are just words on a screen, and I remember feeling that for the first six months of my relationship. Do you primarily keep in contact online? I do think leaving her a gift behind would help wonders, because I know it does for me - I see things given to me by my boyfriend and it reminds me instantly of him and the instance of us being together. If you do keep in contact online, I definitely recommend trying to add as much of a human element in as you can - try and convince her to turn her mic on when you Skype. If you can make phonecalls, try and phone each other a lot, as I think being able to hear the person is just as important as being able to see them. I think when you are LDR, you just need to try and stay in contact with each other as much as you can.

[QueenB92]

I understand what you mean, I met my SO online too. We just started out as friends and made 2 attempts to try to date over the internet but it didn't work out. So we decided to be together when we saw each other in person. It really helped out a lot, being physically there and doing different activities together. It definitely feels boring sometimes calling, texting, and Skype all the time but I just think about how he's been the best man to me than any other guy I ever had. Trust me, if he wasn't I wouldn't go through this. Also little gifts to each other will help, like if you send her flowers, or you guys have a Mizpah coin necklace that you keep one half and she keeps the other. ( I plan on giving him that soon) If she is in the Army, maybe keeping her dog tags somewhere safe since it may be dangerous to wear them in public. Maybe change up the scenery will help when you Skype. All I get to see are brick walled barracks of the base unit he's at. Also if you guys are into this, maybe you can have a little Skype "fun" *wink wink* If any of this doesn't work I would say to end the relationship. No one deserves to be treated like a TV.

[Methos]

Secrecy: I sent you a PM.

About hearing the voice of your SO for the first time, I still remember the first time I made her laugh. ) What a BEAUTIFUL sound! We had our mics on but, she feels she doesn't speak english well (even though she does) and didn't want anyone to hear her so she wasn't talking. I was though and she asked me to say something in Romanian (I had started learning her language .. but she laughs because my accent is so bad! Lol). I guess I was mumbling a bit .. just thinking out loud but she thought I was speaking and couldn't hear so she turned her speakers up. Just then I thought of what to say .. to only Romanian word I could think of at the moment .. "NU!" (Means, "no") Well .. it BLASTED through her speakers and started a feedback loop of, "NU!!! NU!!! NU!!!" She was looking down at the keyboard and her head popped up ad her eyes looked like they were gona fly out of her head! Then she burst out laughing. ) Thank you .. for helping me recall that cute memory. I haven't heard from her for several days now and that memory just gave me a smile.

I also remember the first time we talked on the phone .. THAT made everything seem much more real.

QueenB92: Yes .. being there and DOING things together is sooo much better. We always find creative things to do online, like watching movies and listening to music together, playing games we make up, even danced together a couple times. We've taken our laptops out to places to make it like we're bringing each other there. But there's no substitute for actually BEING there, sitting next to each other.

And about your SO being the best guy you've ever had .. not to be arrogant but, it's clear that I am that guy, to her. But I also feel that she believes the distance, the different cultures and our age difference (it's fairly significant but not unreasonable .. I know people in the same "range" who got married and had families) .. are insurmountable obstacles and therefore, subconsciously blocks any deep feelings of connection. But there have been moments when we have made a DEEP connection and it's in times like that that it is so evident that what we have is unique and special .. we're talking, once in a lifetime special. If ONLY we could sustain our in person, "encounters" so to speak, after we are back to online. Or .. if we could extend our time together. Hmmm ..

[jezebot]

This is why Skype is so precious to me. We're able to spend time together almost as if we were physically close. It reminds me that he's real, that our feelings for each other are real. We haven't met in person yet (September, we're hoping!), so being able to see and hear him is vital.