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stella41b -> RE: Ideal Partners-the reality of online dating (11/27/2007 7:02:37 PM)
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I'd say it's got nothing to do with the method of how you get to know each other, but far more to do with the two people involved.
If you're not with the right person, or rather, more accurately, the potential right person, the circumstances in which you interact with that person are never going to be reliable or successful, and it doesn't matter whether it's online, offline, real time, meeting, dating, whatever.
MasterFireMaam made a very valid point here in that we fall in love with someone on the basis of how we perceive them, not how they are in reality. These are very wise words. The reality is usually quite different, and you need to ask yourself if you are prepared to give that person enough opportunity and benefit of the doubt to enable them to develop a successful relationship with you. Can you accept the reality of that person? Can you give them enough opportunity? How much are you prepared to shift, be openminded and flexible in the relationship? Can you find enough flexibility and openmindedness to be able to make the development of the relationship possible, but without compromising either your needs and expectations or causing the other person to do the same? These I feel are the very relevant questions which need to be answered and which determine whether the relationship is going to be successful or not. These are questions which quite often need to be addressed constantly, openly, together and thoroughly discussed if the relationship is to have any hope of working out.
This might seem a strange concept to a few, but not even advanced technology such as what we now have at our disposal can ever change human nature, which is fluid, flexible, constantly changing, experiencing, maturing, developing, learning. We all change, and we change every day, often in small ways, but we're all running in a race against the clock and the calendar and it's a race which we know we're never going to win, but still we live, we experience, we interact, we learn, we change, we mature, we get older, and often who we were a couple of months ago is no longer relevant to who we are today. Getting to know someone isn't a part of the relationship, but the basis of the complete relationship.
Life doesn't come with a guarantee, not for anybody. Each new relationship is really nothing more than a crap shoot, a shot in the dark, the chance to explore, learn, interact, share feelings, emotions, thoughts and ideas and to gain (hopefully) from the experience and the relationship.
The Internet is really nothing more than a very powerful tool of communication and resource. It's brought a lot of benefits into our lives, it makes communication, interaction, and the gathering, processing and distribution of information so much easier and simpler. It's made our lives much more convenient, easier, simpler, and it's also a very useful tool as a preliminary means of getting to know people prior to meeting face to face. But it's really nothing more than this.
The problem is however that in using the Internet to deal with other people we are forced to accept others at face value, and not everybody is as honest, open or even genuine as they make themselves out to be. For some the Internet is nothing more than 'theatre of one person', a 'one man show' which is why it is full of people who are unable or refuse to deal with 'real life' or reality, and some of these people get drawn in by the power of the Internet so much that they cease to live in real terms, but merely live online in a world of fantasy and illusion. Often there is no way of working out who these people are until it's too late, as many here I'm sure have discovered to their cost, and this tends to make people more distrustful of others, more suspicious, more sceptical, making the possibility of developing an online relationship even harder. For some it's too much bother and effort.
Then you also have the 'Wal-Mart' philosophy of developing online relationships, which many people actually subscribe to - sometimes I would even suggest that this applies to most people. This is caused by people who approach an online relationship in the exact same way as shopping for groceries online, they don't see the real person behind the profile, they just see the image, and they browse the profiles like happy shoppers browsing supermarket shelves for products - looking for the right image, the right words in the profile, and many honestly and genuinely believe that all they have to do is string a sentence together in a message e.g. to a Domme and they've found a Mistress.
This is where the Internet dehumanizes people, and many feel that they have to 'sell' themselves, to be photoimage perfect, have the right image, wear the right clothing, have the right photos, and also the right buzz words - attractive, professional, experienced, successful, feminine, so much so that what you find on the profile isn't a description of a person but is more like product information or even a list of ingredients. Contains traces of nuts. Not suitable for diabetics, To be taken three times a day after meals.
This affects everybody, more so females than males, and more so Dommes than others - they become fetishized, objectified, dehumanized, to the point where to some they take on this Cruella type persona - the stockings, the leather boots, the heels, the corset, the whips, and who they are as women becomes irrelevant, unimportant. I know this from my own experiences as a TS female, I too am objectified, fetishized, and not just by men but by many women too, and even though I need the Internet to help me become integrated into society, out there in the real world, people who are actually interested in me as a person are sadly very few and far between. The Internet for me personally is my Achilles heel, the necessary evil, and at times I get very cynical about people and life in general.
Fortunately I've developed a sixth sense, I look for and respond to emotional signals, I'm able to read people through their words, this comes from a life of reading people, looking at them, trying to work out who to trust and who not to trust. I still make mistakes, I can still be fooled and deceived, but now it isn't that easy. I'm sharp, you have to be even sharper. Probably like most people here who've either been in the community a long time or who are experienced in life I know the stories, the excuses, the different approaches, and I can work out the gender and the intention of someone on the basis of a couple of paragraphs.
But it doesn't make it any easier - where do I draw the line? Where do I give someone the chance and the opportunity to get to know me and develop a friendship or relationship? And where do I reject, let go, and move on? Even today I cannot answer this question.
I cannot answer this question because I know that human nature by its very definition is unpredictable, almost impossible to define, classify or fit into neat little boxes all nicely labelled.
I know one thing for sure. The Internet is never going to change and it will always be that blessing and curse in my life. Just like the society outside my front door.
I change, and so do the people in my life, and all the people who come into and leave my life. Some stay, some give me things, some take things, some cause me problems, some help me solve my problems, some give me problems I can solve for them, some take one look at me and run a mile.
But it all comes back to the same thing - it's not how you get to know someone that's important, but who you get to know and what relationship you develop and share with each other.
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