If belief defines experience, then all definitions are meaningless and there can be no human interaction.
I can really, truly believe I’m a bird–I’m still going to splat if I jump off a building.
Are you genuinely suggesting that your analogy is apt, and that if two people truly feel fulfilled within their definition of a relationship, that they’re just lying to themselves?
If “dating” can be defined as concretely as “a bird,” then what is the accepted definition of dating?
If two people claim to feel truly fulfilled by a “relationship” consisting entirely of lines of text on a computer screen, they’re either lying to themselves, or profoundly emotionally stunted.
If you’re communicating entirely by correspondence because you’re somehow physically prevented from being together, I don’t see how that can be fulfilling. If you’re NOT somehow physically prevented from being together, and just choose not to, then how interested can you possibly be in each other?
**DianaG **summed up my feelings pretty well.
DianaG, please stop phrasing my thoughts more succinctly and eloquently than I. It is rude.
These people are not interested in dating (for whatever reason). They’re interested in a phone and online “relationship” but don’t want to call it that, so they use the term “dating.”
Not dating, but what’s known as an “emotional affair,” or “emotional infidelity.”
But no, not dating.
I can see wanting to get to know a person over the internet, flirting, chatting, etc. Nothing wrong with that. But it’s not “dating”. How can you know if there’s any chemistry, or attraction if you don’t actually meet in person?
Besides, for all you know, you could be chatting with some 80-year old ex-con named Jasper.
Shit! Cover’s blown!
Away!
If you’ve never even met in person then
Online dating ain’t dating.
Phone sex ain’t sex.
Texting your love ain’t love.
However, people who develop a rapport online can certainly have a successful relationship when they meet in person. Or not.
This is what I tell people about the development of my relationship and marriage–that it was much like an old-fashioned “courtship”, rather than “dating”.
I’d have decked anyone for suggesting that our relationship wasn’t “real” at the time, it was agonizing. I can see the point though about online only interactions. We did hedge our bets until we’d met in person, which was about two years after we first spoke online. We felt what we felt, but we knew that we needed to confirm that the physical chemistry was there before we made any long-term plans, so to speak. We didn’t really consider ourselves “partners” because we hadn’t yet met in person, but we were exclusive in a manner of speaking; neither one of us was interested in seeing anyone else during that stretch of time. We both kinda knew we’d already found what we wanted, it just remained to be confirmed with a physical meeting.
We pretty much got nekkid the second we got behind closed doors, which was a bit faster than I’d usually have moved on a “first date” 
So… I guess I’d agree that it’s not “dating” but it can be “courting”.
When people ask how long we’ve been together I usually have to give them a 2-4 point timeline depending on why they’re asking.
Definitely not, in my opinion. When I myself use the phrase ‘online dating’ I’m just using a vague term to mean ‘setting up blind dates via the internet’. Most of my relationships have been with people I’ve met online, but what they and I knew when we were online was merely the tip of the iceberg, a medium to find each other and arrange to meet in real life.
I keep hearing about these ‘true’ online dating success stories where people correspond for years, meet, and then are joined at the hip, but surprisingly few people mention the disasters- finding that they are much less phsyically attracted to the other person in real life, or that they have mannerisms that are easy to hide behind a computer monitor.
However I know this happens, because my friends have been in several such trainwrecks. At least if you have a snaggle-toothed coworker you can kind of decide early on if this is a person you are interested in or not, rather than falling in love with a subjective perception of who they are.
When I was a teenager I had online ‘girlfriends’. But no ounce of my being felt that I was ‘in a relationship’ I was a single guy who talked to words on a screen.
Who ever said it doesn’t?
I’m not sure I understand why you have the word true in a set of single quotes up there.