主题：Cyber Relationships
版权所有：季米 转贴自from a US BBS　提交时间：09:45:12 05月06日



Cyber Relationships


With the growth of the Internet in the last 5 years, the Internet is playing an ever-increasing role in shaping and changing human relations. The phenomena of couples meeting each other online is becoming a common happening, and most Internet users have met online friends or knew of a friend who was involved in an online relation. Having said that, online relationships still suffer from several draw backs, there is a general level of lack of trust and respect chatters, and once a relationship starts users have the tendency to full the gap about their partners with falls expectations that fulfill their own dreams. Having falls expectations usually lead to a major disappointment once the relationship grows out of the digital domain. Therefor I would attempt here to give few my advice to online chatters on how to avoid disappointment and have a healthy online relationship from the beginning.

1. Honesty: We all would like to believe that we are honest, but that is unfortunately not the case. It is important to understand that with the start of each chat session with another individual, be whom you are and not whom you would like to be. Once you enter into a series of lies to project another personality you will put this whole relation at risk, and you might be unable to correct what you have created and regret the fact that you have lied in the first place. By all means giving a false image might not be at all the correct strategy to attract the attention of others because you don't know what they appreciate and what they don't, therefor your false image might actually push them away then attract them.

2. Objective: Try to have a clear objective on why are you online?, what are you looking for? A partner? A short term relationship? A long term relationship? A friend?. Such distinction will help you better deal with the situation and take the necessarily steps to reach your objective. Also it would be very helpful to try and understand what is the objective of the person you are talking to, hence if you both have different expectations or goals it is better to call it quits.

3. Avoid being too general: When asked what you like (movies, music and hang out!), who doesn't like that anyhow?, make an attempt to describe to the person whom you are exactly, what makes you different, why are you YOU. Some people might be afraid to disclose what they really like in fear that they would be judged negatively, but hiding whom you are for too long, will hurt you long term as well as will hurt your partner when they find out.

4. Physical attraction: You have to be clear from day one whether physical attraction is important to you or not, and make the person you talking to aware of that fact. It is useless to fall in love with a screen name? because when the moment of truth comes to meet that person & you don't like what you see, it will be a moment of great pain for you and for the person you though you loved.

5. Be Polite: I have been chatting online for years and it is amazing how people can be ?when they hide behind a screen, they would insult you, ignore you and categorize you as a machine. You should understand that you are dealing with a human, sometime words or sentences like would u like?, May I ask?, Please and Thank you?can make a HUGE difference. The person you are chatting with does not know you, your mission is to gain their acceptance or at least their attention with a couple of sentences in a limited time, this is why small words can play a major role.

6. Compliments: People LOVE to be complimented, but true and sincere compliments, when you chat online the person you are talking to can not see you and hence can not see your approval or admiration look, they can not hear the tone of your voice. So when you like something JUST SAY IT. Few people will reject a beautiful compliment.

7. Don't over insist: If you feel that you are not getting a positive feed back from the person you are talking to, just move on, there are millions of people who chat daily in so many different chat sites. Instead of fighting and wasting your time with someone who is not made for you, go find what you are looking for. Just in real life, not all girls or guys you talk to want to become your friends or more.

8. Have a minimum amount of trust: Remember that the majority of chatters are people like you, they have their own lives and sometimes their boring lives, they are there to meet humans or potential friends or partners, they are not there to kill you or hurt you. If you are looking for a future partner you should be willing to open the door, don't think of them as guilty from the start, treat them as sincere and innocent until proven otherwise. After all, most of the people online are not more dangerous then all the people you see in the street, parks, bars or restaurants.

9. Machine effect: Don't define the people you talk to as a part of a machine, they are not the ET People? they are real people that have feelings, they have emotions and they can hurt and get hurt. value them as individuals not as a part of your computer. Treat them like you want to be treated as an individual.

10. Try to HAVE FUN.

The points above might seem basic to some of you, but through my experience I noticed that many people find those points useful once they hear them, hence I tried to gather them all in this article, I hope it will improve your online experience.　

[1]