You do realize it’s 2013 and it’s completely normal?
No it’s not.
Online dating is normal. Established couples, maintaining their relationships online is normal.
Meeting someone online, proclaiming your love for one another, and then (comically) saying to yourself you are in a committed relationship is NOT normal.
I’ll be the first to admit bias in these matters. My first LTR started when I was 19 and he 36. My second LTR, I was 26 and he was 20. I am aware of statistics on age differences in relationships, but so far they haven’t applied to my own.
It’s normal enough that I, at 28, have had many friends of all ages and stages begin relationships in this way for the last 15 years of my life. Some of these couples are now married. I think you are old, and are not aware of how much the internet has changed what’s ‘normal’ for young people forming romantic relationships.
I think Shakes is speaking more to the relationships that are strictly online, and not the ones where meeting online is only a means to an end (in real life relationship).
Exactly. Dan Savage addresses this in a recent “Savage Love” podcast, where the couple is planning a future together after considering themselves to be in a committed relationship for over 2 years, but has not actually met in person.
ETA: Savage strongly suggested a meeting in the flesh ASAP to see if the couple was truly compatible, and then stop wasting time if they weren’t.
The situation in the OP has only been going on for ‘a few weeks’, though, and he’s made it clear they will not be able to plan to travel from states away to meet in person, or have much contact, soon, so… all the more reason not to tattle to parents or freak out, IMO.
I’ve never known a couple who started online and got serious to not meet in person within a few months or ASAP (it takes time and money if you’re countries away), though. Letting it go for years whilst calling someone you’ve never met your boyfriend IS odd (so odd I’ve never known it to happen).
Dating online-only, while different than going to the movies and groping, is also a fairly safe way for a young person to start out. I’ve never dated online (though I have a friend in Austria I’d probably have dated if we lived in the same country), but I didn’t date at all until I was 19, and it didn’t hold me back compared to friends that started at 12.
How does she consider herself to be going out with someone whom she can’t even see in person? It sounds like Kip from Napolean.
WoW relationship? Tell your parents, those people are never mentally healthy or viable relationship material. And do something about your sister’s WoW addiction too. Get her outside rather than killing rats for gold for hours. That might even help with the depression.
:rolleyes: BS.
She’s only met this guy on line? How does she know he is who he says he is? That he’s really 25? That he’s really a cop? That he’s really going into the military? That she really has a lot in common with him?
If the computer has a webcam, is she letting him watch herself masturbate? How does she know he won’t post video of it on a web site somewhere?
Other than the possibility of him posting the video everywhere, I too agree it’s one of the safer relationships you can have. No possibility of pregnancy, disease, or rape. She’s seventeen, not thirteen. At seventeen I had a couple of online relationships with much older men, too. Webcams and such were not prolific so I never posted video of myself, but I certainly cybered plenty in those days. Ironically I ended up meeting my love in person, and have been with him for almost twenty years now.
The only thing that concerns me really is the depression. Oh, and she doesn’t seem to be able to differentiate “twoo wuv” from normal stuff that happens when you are seventeen. I had a hard time with that one, too, as do many people at that age.
Can’t you be her friend and her sister instead of being her mom?
Definitely. “Social” “interaction” with people in the computer is a sign of serious mental deficiency.
But…
You go to a coffee shop and meet a cute girl. A conversation starts, you hit it off, and talk for hours. She tells you her name is Shelley, she’s single and 28, and is from Milwaukee. She says she works as a bowling-ball cleaner.
Short of demanding her ID, birth certificate, and a recent paystub, how do you know any of this is the truth? How you do know she isn’t actually a 32-year-old married unemployed Canadian?
Having been in an online relationship that started in a video game, I have to say the biggest concern is not that she’s 17 and he’s 25 or what acts their interactions consist of, but that she’s got depression and self-esteem issues and makes poor relationship decisions. That is what’s going to cause problems in the years to come. I understand the desire to protect her, but I think the bigger picture is being missed. She could be doing the same things when she’s 35.
BS, indeed. Mining’s the way to go.
If you hadn’t found out, would it lead to harm for her?
IMO do nothing, unless you want to take the chance she’ll hate you for ever. As someone else said, monitor from a distance.
Reported.