by Pedro Ricardo Simões

A Survey on What Makes an Online Relationship Successful

Understanding “successful” as durable or lasting, rather than pointless or probably unsuccessful, may lead one to ask if there are any ways to understand which factors bring people who met online closer together allowing them to live long-term relationships. Would these factors be somehow related to the ones that operate offline?

 

People who first met in places of common interests, who communicated for long periods of time before meeting offline without exaggerated closeness, who worked through barriers to becoming closer, and who managed conflict well, tended to stay together. Four major factors can be used to point out the type of relationship one can begin or develop on line: meeting place, where couples first encounter each other online; obstacles or barriers to getting together overcome by the couples, such as distance and previous relationships; timing or period spent communicating before meeting offline, and how intimate they became before meeting offline; and ability of people to resolve problems in communication.

 

So, one can be able to understand “how the story goes” if he/she has the ability to evaluate facts based on the questions above:

 

Where did they meet? – Meeting in Places of Common Interests: The place or location online is important to determine how much people have in common. People can meet in places for those in one occupation field of study, profession development, or leisure time hobby. They can assemble in chat rooms, bulletin boards or forums.

 

What have they overcome? – Obstacles related to Distance, Jobs and Relationships: In taking advantage of meeting through the internet, most couples will face the problem of how to overcome distance, involving sacrifice of time and money to meet face to face and carry on with the relationship. This issue is fundamental to the success of committed online relationships. Job commitments or the raising of children from previous relationships can hamper geographical relocation for one or both people. Previous or current involvements with others can also restrain commitment in the current relation.

 

When did they meet IRL? – Length of Contact and Postponing of Physical Intimacy: On the whole, couples who communicated longer before they met stayed together and bent more lasting bonds. The mechanics of relationship-building would suggest that the more a person knows about someone overtime, while still desiring to maintain contact, the better chance they would have of connecting in the long run. Bigger self-disclosure can take place more easily, since couples spend time communicating, instead of chipping in events or activities demanding concentration on stimuli outside themselves. Studies show that increased bandwidth cuts back on apparent trust, while text-only environments allow for more intimacy between matched pairs. People exchange four times as much information using only typed words, than they do face to face or when seen through web-cams. At the same time, couples that soared their intimacy through cyber-sex, especially before meeting in person, ended their relationships more frequently than ones who never had that kind of intimacy until the met face to face. The pacing and content of the communication as well as the length of time people write can influence the nature and depth of the acquaintance between the two people. Saving intimacy for in-person meeting seems a more workable strategy for long-term relationships than sharing sexual preferences and scenarios.

 

How did they communicate? – Resolving Conflicts: The area of didactic communication is often a broad, vague on, in that good communication is seen as vital to healthy relationships, while lack of communication is one of the reasons given for the failure of a relationship. Couples who met online have the possibility to explain themselves in detail. When conflicts arise in the timing of communication, styles or goals can come out sooner and more clearly than those arising from a real-time or face-to-face conversation.

 

It is proved that relationships that begin online can, and actually do move offline. People do reach happiness, stability and longevity as a couple after meeting online. “Evolution” to offline isaided by honesty and through the exchange of information, thoughts and feelings. In meeting online, the more relevant shared emotions and thoughts are, the less relevant looks become. More durable relationships may perhaps result from the focus upon non-physical factors.