8/29/12
Comment: Use Video Chat, Just Don’t Fall in Love Over It

photo via Flickr

Jen, in response to the post “Your Call: Can You Fall in Love Through Video Chats?”

My husband and I certainly went a long way down the road to love through video chats [ — it was] about 8 months before we could meet in person.

I certainly wouldn’t [advise making] any commitments before you actually meet in person. No matter how honest you are with each other, you learn things in person that you just can’t find out online: how they smell, whether they do actually pick up their socks, how physically comfortable you are with each other, how you interact with each other’s friends/families etc.  [Plus,] there’s a lot about having an online relationship that’s a bit ‘artificial’ just by the nature of it: one of you can always just walk away from the chat when you want to, you’re in your own little ‘bubble’, etc.

I do think that it’s a great way to start a relationship as you often skip the bullshit/trivial part of dating pretty quickly. And I think that it can give you a very good idea if you’re compatible or not. But I would definitely want a face-to-face meeting before I decided on whether we love each other for real.

It certainly worked for us though: we’ve been together for almost 9 years, and that certainly wouldn’t have happened without a great deal of time spent on video chat.