Online Relationships Can Be More Real Than Real Ones

I Love You. Now Text Me. Lately there has been a great deal of public handwringing about whether the temptations of Internet communication have corrupted our ability to forge normal or healthy or real relationships (whatever those might mean). The "New York Times" ran a series of glib pieces asking if the prevalence of online connections heralds the end of courtship, or if Facebook ruined love. The" Atlantic" recently put forth its own shallow exploration of the demise of sustained relationships, and of course news of Manti Te'o's bizarre hologram of a girlfriend has also stirred up some existential musing on the nature of virtual connections. The question of whether the ease of Internet flirtation, and the ease of escalating Internet flirtation, has affected marriage is also of great interest. Each incident of Internet straying brings its own gleeful anatomizing. Take the many pundits philosophically parsing the question of whether Anthony Weiner cheated on his wife. Chasing down a perfect, universal definition of cheating that works for the modern world is less interesting than understanding what these particular forms of cheating say about us. Received wisdom tells us online communications are unreal, fake, and distant, but they can, in fact, be the opposite; they can represent very intense fantasies, distilled versions of romantic yearning, including its darker, more narcissistic sides, honest articulations, for better or for worse, of the inner life.For the rest of the story: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/roiphe/2013/02/online dating is it more real.html