Information
General knowledge
You want to know about online relationships? Well here you go, this is a page of general information about them.
For information about the online relationships that aren't serious (aka the 'wanna cyburrr?' ones), click
here
Online relationships are a new thing to society, but they've existed as long as the internet itself. When people started to communicate with each other using the internet, online dating and online relationships were born. The online relationship itself, is by definition, a relationship that has formed online. There are many different relationships online, like friendships and family. Usually when online relationships are mentioned, it means that there is a romantic relationship formed between two (or maybe more) people that have met each other online. These two people have never met each other in the offline world. For people who have met each other offline, the relationship that then continues online, would probably be called a long distance relationship. Many online relationships progress into long distance relationships. There are people who still prefer to call their relationship an online relationship purely because they want to make a statement that they met online.
Not much is really known about online relationships because it's not really a big interest in society. There have been studies, but those are usually about people who turned out to be a rapist or murderer. Some studies about online relationships still exist though, albeit very few.
Here, is a study done on online dating sites (not particularly about online relationships) that shows the 'success' rate. Whatever 'success' rate means in that study.
There are a few things that are present in every online relationship:
The couple has met online
The couple has never met offline before
The couple agreed to be in a relationship
The couple has an internet connection
Those are pretty much the facts in an online relationships. There are a few exceptions, like those couples that have already met each other offline, but still call their relationship an online one. Or when one of the partners suddenly has no more internet connection.
Against common belief, online relationships are, by a neutral stance, not:
Roleplay, or fake
Imaginary and unrealistic
Unsafe and dangerous
Doomed to fail
Less serious than offline relationships
For nerds only
For those who can not 'get any'
A quick fix
You can see how many 'common beliefs' exist against online relationships. Many are just not true, and are the complete opposite sometimes. Whatever the complaint is,
an online relationship is and will always be a real relationship. They are not fake, and should be treated with as much respect as offline relationships get. With the exception that there are people out there who engage into online relationships for 'fun' and call it 'fake' themselves. These sort of 'relationships' are often short-lived and usually roleplay, thus they don't really fit in with the real online relationships.
