Yesterday I tell my best friend how I’m feeling a little blue since SP is on vacation and I haven’t been able to talk to him.
Her response is " I don’t know how you can be so wound up over someone you never met. I know you guys email and talk on the phone all the time but it’s not a real relationship,like I have."
First off, it is a real relationship. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have the ups and downs that we do. If it was just a cyber fling,it would have ended when I cooled things off between us. It didn’t. We worry about each other and we care about each other. He can tell how I’m feeling just by the sound of my voice.
Secondly, and here comes the rant,let’s take a closer look at your relationship, shall we? Since you offered it up…
Endearing Things Her Boyfriend Does/Has Done
Gone through her purse
Gone through her email trash can
Gone through her cell phone’s calls received
Called her 180 times at work in a two week period. She was warned not to get ANY more personal calls. She tells him and two days later,he’s calling again.
Threatened to hit her during arguments
Proposed marriage and pouted when she pointed out they can’t afford to get married.
** My personal favorite…After an argument, they were “making up” and he was, to put this delicately,stimulating her with his fingers. He,out of the blue,grabbed her very roughly in a sensitive area and told her she “better never leave.”
So… THAT is a valid relationship and my relationship with a man who supports me is not? Hmmmmm. Maybe if SP stopped being caring and started acting like a stalker, it would be valid. I get it now.
And yes, I’ve advised her to break up with him, repeatedly. A lot of people have.
hardygrrl, being relatively new, I have followed with interest your various posts relating to SP, and have always wondered what kind of relationship it was exactly. Now I know.
Ok, few things to say.
#1. The only people who can determine whether any relationship is a real relationship are those who are actively engaged in it. So she has no right telling you whether or not you’re in a real relationship or not. I would nicely tell her to kiss my ass.
#2. What the hell is her problem? Does she not see a real problem with anything her boyfriend is doing? He sounds as if he has serious problem. I mean, sure, they’re in a real relationship-a real BAD relationship. Doesn’t seem healthy at all to me.
Is there anyone who could talk to her and make her understand this is probably not a good situation for her to be placed in? He sounds potentially abusive, if not already.
[sup][sub]If Kabbes doesn’t stop posting on every thread I post on, I’m going to start getting suspicious.[/sub][/sup]
I think it’s really cool that you have such in intense relationship with someone you know online. I have never been in any relationship whatsoever, but I can still see that this counts as one.
Too bad your friend can’t be convinced to dump her boyfriend. What an asshole (him, not her). Well, I guess she’s kind of mean for saying that to you.
All of her friends have talked to her about his behavior. After she told me about the incident when he grabbed her, I told her to walk away before he really hurt her.
The ironic thing is, she’s been there when I’m talking to SP on the phone and commented about how happy I look when I talk to him. How I glow for hours afterward.
I guess me and SP don’t have enough drama to qualify as a real relationship. I’ll have to tell him to be more controlling and less supportive.
If she wasn’t one of my best frineds, I would have told her to kiss my ass, trust me.
Has your friend always been supportive of your relationship before? Her comments after phone calls certainly indicate that to be the case. You may simply have misinterpreted what she meant. Or she might have been having a bad day. Or maybe she just needs someone to talk through with her what it means to be in a relationship - she may have an entirely innocent incorrect view.
OTOH, to me there is a certain and not insignificant aspect of a relationship that does involve physically being together for large periods of time. Seeing them when they and you haven’t made the special effort to contact eachother. Just spending time together, experiencing eachother’s good and bad points and accepting them. As such, I see her point of view to a certain extent - but think that she’s phrased it poorly. And it is of course more than possible to be in love with someone you’ve never physically met.
I hope you don’t think that I am putting down your relationship with that paragraph - nothing could be further from the truth. I’m just trying to say that there is another stage of closeness you haven’t been permitted to reach yet and your friend might be recognising this when she says “it’s not a real relationship”.
This is a risky thing to post to someone you don’t know - I hope you’ll take it in good faith as me trying to urge empathy for you friend’s position, not a slam on yourself.
Yes - it’s clever how I know psychicly which threads you’re going to post on and get there first, isn’t it? As I said - we old people are always one step ahead. Cackle.
Yes, your relationship is real. I would say that the word she was perhaps looking for was “complete”.
I have had many friends and acquaintences enter relationships online and then not meet that person until much later.
The emotions and experiences are real, but they have not begun a complete relationship with the person. There is much more to a relationship than just talking. Some of the relationships I have watched up close have survived the two actually meeting, but it is always weakened by it. You only get pieces of a person over a phoneline or through email.
You can’t even begin to seriously evaluate compatibility until you’ve seen the look in his eyes when you spend 45 minutes talking about your day at work. Until you’ve experienced first hand his inability to remember milk when at the store. The fact that your definition of “night life” is different from his.
I would never diminish the feelings you have, but I do have difficulty taking any online relationship seriously until the parties have met and spent significant time together.
This doesn’t invalidate your feeling that she should leave her boyfriend (though I would also be put out if the reason for saying no to a proposal was financial; that’s inherently disingenuous).
Trust me, I know. We have talked about meeting and how the chemistry may not be there IRL. I’m worried I’m not pretty enough for him and he’s worried his personality will drive me away. It’s been a topic of endless discussion.
[sub]The above paragraph may come as a shock to those who think I’m an egomaniacal,flippant bimbo who does nothing but flirt. IRL, I’m insecure.Believe it or not. [/sub] Hamadryad
Is that cookie sugar free? I am diabetic.
Anyway, back to the OP. I just talked to her on the phone about the comment. She apologized but had to point out that maybe I should look around for someone who lived closer. Like I haven’t tried that before? I reminded her of all my previous relationships with men who met her geographical boundaries that ended badly. I also reminded her how I am not an easy person to deal with and for me to find someone who understands me,supports me, and doesn’t run away screaming when I reveal just how insecure and clingy I can be…you just don’t ignore a miracle like that. We would have kept talking but he called on her other line so she had to go.
I am genuninely scared he’s going to hurt her. I’ve seen his temper in action and for one of my best friends to be involved with someone so liable to fly off the handle at the slightest perceived slight…I’m very worried for her safety. Yes, I’ve told her this too.
He sounds like a potential stalker. But there’s only so much you can do, ya know? I’m sorry for her.
As for your relationship, it sounds like you’re being realistic.
I don’t know about romantic relationships being sustainable by phone and e-mail, but I have a very good and true friend that I met via some business I had online, and we are four years into it without ever laying eyes on each other.
Just got off the phone with her. She apologized again and we were having fun talking, then HE called to check up on her (usually happens hourly) so she had to go.
That would drive me insane. Dating someone who had to check up on you (when you’re not together) that often?
::shudders::
Things are better though between me and her. She even reminded me that she really hopes that things do work out for me and SP, and like she told him once when I was talking to him, he “better treat you right.”
It sounds like she’s going to get hurt very badly before learning anything. That’s not the scary part, it’s only tragic. The scary part is–if she learns anything from it. Too many people don’t. Might just go find someone pretty much exactly the same.
Online relationships can be very intense, very deep, and often a closer look into someone than is sometimes achievable up close and in physical contact. The downsides are pretty much nailed by obfusciatrist (nice save on the “weakened” to “changed dramatically”, by the by), with one addition: as close as email, chat, and phone contact can be, a person needs touch. Downright needs it, coded right into the coils of that extremely nifty nucleic acid stuff. Times are, what a relationship needs more than any words, any linguistic communication whatsoever, is to simply lie silently and snuggling. When that can’t happen, there’s a certain unavoidable amount of hurt, in both, all the time. Which is rough, but not insurmountable by any means, just a wrinkle of certain types of connections in the modern world. Not to be obsessed over, but neither to be glossed over, ignored, and swept under a mental rug, because it occasionally needs acknowledgement.
Best of luck and happiest resolutions to all y’all.
You are so right. We’ve discussed that as well. How we want to be able to do the things we talk about IRL.
To be able to run my fingers through his hair, to able to smell his neck. to taste his skin,to feel his breath on my face as we…
::sigh::
::Goes to take cold shower::
Aw, hardygrrl, I have felt your pain. It’s not fun, is it? I wish you the best of luck with SP, and I hope that one day soon in the future that you meet with your beloved SP and live happily ever after.
Meanwhile, I too, am still concerned about your friend’s welfare. Does she have an older sibling, maybe, or a parent whose advice she trusts absolutely? Is there anything that you can wave in front of her face that shouts “Hey, this is an unhealthy relationship! Call it quits!”
It makes me mad to think someone else can dominate another person like that-calling to check in on her? Sheesh. grumbles under breath Not moi! Kiss my ass, big boy. I don’t think so.
Her parents don’t even know she’s dating him. They have severe issues with racism and he’s not white.
Put it this way.when her father found out that,despite appearences,I’m biracial, he was horrified.
[sub]BTW, I’m a quarter Cherokee. Due to recessive genes, I look more Irish than anything. [/sub]
They don’t know she’s dating anyone and if they found out…
She has her friends who have REPEATEDLY told her to get the hell out of this relationship. She’s in love though and doesn’t want to hear it.
Guess all those cyber cards make up for the smothering. Ironic that cyber cards are cool, isn’t it?
