'Online friendships' with the opposite sex, are they feasible?

I've had mixed results with 'online friendships' with the opposite sex. None of them worked for too long for me. In my experience, 'online friendships' with the opposite sex tend not to work for the following reasons:

1. You don't know what you're dealing with.

I've often thought that a 30-minute conversation on the phone could do more in terms of getting to know someone than months of sending private messages back and forth. And, that's in a best-case scenario where everyone is completely candid.

However, when you realize that almost everyone is self-censoring on the Internet to varying degrees, you can't even be certain who you're chatting with.

Do you engage in self-censorship on this forum?

Most Americans now know the feeling of typing something into a social media input box, thinking again, and deciding against posting whatever it was. But while it certainly seemed like a widespread phenomenon, no one had actually quantified the extent of this "self-censorship."

But now, new research based on a sample of 3.9 million Facebook users reveals precisely how widespread this activity is.

...

71 percent of all the users surveyed engaged in some self-censorship either on new posts or in comments, and the median self-censorer did so multiple times.
LINK

2. Emotions frequently get in the way.

When it comes to an 'online friendship' with the opposite sex, in my experience, it usually turns into something semi-romantic on one side or the other.

3. There is constant questioning of motives.

This may vary widely, but, in my experience, one side or the other always seems cautious about whether the other person is trying to make the relationship romantic.

Those are the reasons why I believe an 'online friendship' with the opposite sex generally isn't feasible.

a reply to: Profusion

Well I have a funny story, in 2006 I used MySpace. I met someone and we chatted on the Internet for 2 months. This person lived in Vegas. Right, we all know what happens in Vegas stays. Wrong! I made plans to fly out. I booked a room just for me at the Hard Rock Hotel. Flew in and took a taxi to the hotel. Never talked to this person on the phone.

This person knew what I looked like because of MySpace photo. I thought I knew too. Wrong. Turned out to be a person of the same sex. I looked the person in the eyes and said ok now we are going to talk. I said I am sorry but I am not gay. You fooled me. I forgive you. We became kinda friends but I lost trust. The person went to the bathroom and I never saw him again.

originally posted by: Profusion
I've had mixed results with 'online friendships' with the opposite sex. None of them worked for too long for me. In my experience, 'online friendships' with the opposite sex tend not to work for the following reasons:

1. You don't know what you're dealing with.

I've often thought that a 30-minute conversation on the phone could do more in terms of getting to know someone than months of sending private messages back and forth. And, that's in a best-case scenario where everyone is completely candid.

However, when you realize that almost everyone is self-censoring on the Internet to varying degrees, you can't even be certain who you're chatting with.

Do you engage in self-censorship on this forum?

Most Americans now know the feeling of typing something into a social media input box, thinking again, and deciding against posting whatever it was. But while it certainly seemed like a widespread phenomenon, no one had actually quantified the extent of this "self-censorship."

But now, new research based on a sample of 3.9 million Facebook users reveals precisely how widespread this activity is.

...

71 percent of all the users surveyed engaged in some self-censorship either on new posts or in comments, and the median self-censorer did so multiple times.
LINK

2. Emotions frequently get in the way.

When it comes to an 'online friendship' with the opposite sex, in my experience, it usually turns into something semi-romantic on one side or the other.

3. There is constant questioning of motives.

This may vary widely, but, in my experience, one side or the other always seems cautious about whether the other person is trying to make the relationship romantic.

Those are the reasons why I believe an 'online friendship' with the opposite sex generally isn't feasible.

I think you can apply all the same logic to RL opposite sex friendships as well.


I think most of the time one or the other would prefer to date the friend in question. Even though some will never admit it or cross the line.

I think even when neither person is secretly pining away, they would still be down for some hanky panky.


With males it is very rare for a guy to go far out of his way for a non-family member of the opposite sex they were not interested in..

You will die

I am dead.

thankfully my life was saved by a woman *(not little girl)* I met online.

the right one saves you, on or offline.

a reply to: Profusion

I dated a girl that lived 40 miles away from me for over a year and we met online, but then I saw her crazy side, literally batdookie nuts side. Like I told her I had to leave because I had to wake up 7 hours from now for work and she was trying to drag me out of my car , literally crying outside of my car door so I could stay with her, knowing I would get less than 5 hours sleep and then have to drive home and shower and change for work, it just wasn't feasible, and she ended up dumping me for that reason, lol. Haven't had the best of luck longterm wise obviously, but I have met a few that were promising that I liked, more for their personality than anything. But, when a guy tells a girl he just want's to be friends it doesn't work out either for the most part.

I think it can work, but the friendship has to be a bit superficial. Not meaning "fake", it just can't go too deep. Personally, I think deep friendship with the opposite sex, especially when it didn't exist prior to one's current relationship, is a potential mess waiting to happen.

That being said, my best friend from before I met my husband is a guy. We were friends with benefits for a time, but that died before I met my husband; and my friend and I had carried on our best buddies without a hitch. It's been over 10 years since I tied the knot, and my bff is still an active part of my life. He was there before my husband, and was indeed there for me when my husband wasn't. However, our friendship has morphed. We are still very close in some ways, but it's much more superficial now.

a reply to: Parafitt

Amen brother

I've had friendships with women. Other than my wife*, my best friend is a woman. We can hang out, talk about whatever, watch the tube. She's like a long lost sister I just met a couple of years ago.

Anyway, I can see where things can get carried away for some people - maybe even most people. Talking exclusively through messages where one has time to think about the response naturally leads to pushing each others' pleasure buttons. Over a short period of time, this can start to feel like an actual emotional attachment when it's only a Skinner box.

*I met the love of my life on line and we've been living together for 8 years.

You have to be very careful about the people on the other end of that keyboard. I've been on a dating sight and saw a picture that looked just a little too good to be true, so I Google searched the image.....turned out they were using a pic of a lesser known British actress. I sent them a message, telling them I knew who that woman was and that they had stolen the pic. The account disappeared a few hours later. I've Googled searched every image of attractive women I see on that site since then and you'd be surprised how many are catfish accounts.
If it looks too good to be true.....it probably is.

a reply to: Profusion

Sure, why not? I have quite a few online contacts I consider friends, of both sexes. Not once, with any of these, has anything close to a romantic relationship been even suggested. Now, there needs to be some degree of judgment, and some discernment involved, but yeah, it's feasible.

A few cases, I and others have even exchanged emails. A couple, we have talked about personal things in our lives.

I have a couple of online friends I have kept contact with for many years, and I have not actually met in person.


I think it can work just fine if you have no illusions about the nature of the friendship. If you accept that you might never meet in person - this is not that kind of relationship. That there is no romantic element- sometimes there is one or the other that fantasizes there is, and that isn't realistic.

Ultimately, even if we have shared so much about our personal lives (videos of ourselves, our surroundings, etc.) There is a part of me that knows that it is not impossible someone is fibbing. Someone could be pretending to be something other than they are. I guess I just decided that doesn't matter. If that woman is a man, (or vise versa) than in this exchange, they are able to live a part of themselves. If I appreciate that part, and they appreciate living it, then we're good.
As long as it is understood this is not going to translate into a physical relationship.

Strangely enough, the people I am friends with in real life are almost never online, they don't "do" facebook. I seem to have two very compartementalized areas of my relations. Like there's the mental friendships and the physical friendships, and ne'er the twain shall meet.

that hot chic you're msg is actually a gay

a reply to: Profusion

married couples are always trying to cheat. Glad I never got married

Online friendships' with the opposite sex are definitely feasible, just as with any friendship. I have been friends with both sexes online and there has never even been a hint of anything romantic or friendship ending. I am not much for social media such as facebook or twitter, but my smaller group of friends talk almost daily through Steam and Skype groups.

Two or three from Canada, one from Kentucky, one from Arizona, one from Serbia, and whomever they decide to introduce. I have known most of them for quite a few years now, the friend from Arizona I met clear back in early 2008. Sadly because of our distance apart from each other none of us have gotten the chance to meet in person.

Just practice a little caution and common sense and you should be good to go.

originally posted by: Quantum12
This person knew what I looked like because of MySpace photo. I thought I knew too. Wrong. Turned out to be a person of the same sex. I looked the person in the eyes and said ok now we are going to talk. I said I am sorry but I am not gay. You fooled me. I forgive you. We became kinda friends but I lost trust. The person went to the bathroom and I never saw him again.

What a nightmare. Did that turn you off of online relationships forever? Did you feel like you learned any lessons from the experience that changed your life?

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
I think you can apply all the same logic to RL opposite sex friendships as well.

Here's my answer, point by point.

1. You don't know what you're dealing with.

In real life, there is a lot that can be hidden. However, it takes a lot more skill to hide things in real life than it does to hide things online. There are expert liars in real life who can fool almost anyone to believe almost anything. They are extremely rare.

However, online it's relatively easy to fool almost anyone to believe almost anything.

2. Emotions frequently get in the way.

This point is probably equal in real life and online. I agree.

3. There is constant questioning of motives.

In real life, body language, tone of voice, inflection, the ability to clear up misunderstandings easily, etc. generally makes this an unimportant issue in my experience. In real life, there's little questioning the motives because the motives are so apparent that people just know what's going on (usually). Online it's basically a guessing game in my experience.

originally posted by: Parafitt
You will die

I am dead.

thankfully my life was saved by a woman *(not little girl)* I met online.

the right one saves you, on or offline.

It's great things worked out for you. I was talking about generalities in the original post.

Things worked out for me online too. After a particularly disastrous online relationship, I decided to ask someone out in real life who I've had a fantastic relationship with. It caused a domino effect that led me to improve my life in many important ways.

originally posted by: bbarkow
Talking exclusively through messages where one has time to think about the response naturally leads to pushing each others' pleasure buttons. Over a short period of time, this can start to feel like an actual emotional attachment when it's only a Skinner box.

No one in this thread has challenged my assertion that a 30-minute conversation on the phone could do more in terms of getting to know someone than months of sending private messages back and forth.

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: Profusion

Sure, why not?

You ignore the points I raised in the original post, you ignore the relevant issues other posters mentioned that would contradict your view, you ignore the horror stories in this thread, and you reply...

"Sure, why not?"

Confirmation bias?

originally posted by: GoofingOff
Just practice a little caution and common sense and you should be good to go.

I think that's insulting to the people who shared their horror stories in this thread. Are you claiming that they weren't practicing a little caution and common sense?

Funny story.. I met my current wife 20yrs ago in a AOL chat room.. We chatted and messaged back and forth for years then lost touch for even longer. She (admittedly drunken) found me on MySpace 7 years ago. Shortly after reconnecting (Skype, MySpace, etc) we decided to take the plunge and move in together. I went to pick her up across the state and my first thought was that she was shorter than I imagined, my second thought was "God I hope she doesn't have a penis.." Even after all the Skype calls and exchanging of pics, I still had the sneaking suspicion she might be hiding a penis. Don't get me wrong here... My wife is hot, like use to be a suicide girl hot(she later confirmed SG fact) but there's some pretty hot ladies with penises too. So I had that thought in the back of my mind. Thankfully she was everything she said she was and not an inch more(hah!) ....about half way to my house from meeting face to face/picking her up I covertly check out the situation. We still laugh about my sneaky penis check.

With the whole meeting people online thing.. It's hit and miss.. Lots of creeps and weirdos in the fishing pond but there's lots of rad people too. I have both male and female friends I've met online, mostly artist friends and colleagues. Great folks,

Phone conversations and video chats are more productive and truthful when it comes to communicating online. You can't edit or Google before you respond on the phone.

'Online friendships' with the opposite sex, are they feasible?

In my personal experience, yes they are feasible.
For the past 8 or so years, my friendships have been "online only". Mostly male, with a few females, though I tend to get along better with the other gender. Which I'm pretty sure has nothing to do with my feminine "assets", but rather the fact that my interests are more male aligned than female.

Some of these males have been single, some of them have been in relationships, only one of them exhibited any romantic interest and that interest so happened to be mutual and we remain together several years later and have a child together.

I've often thought that a 30-minute conversation on the phone could do more in terms of getting to know someone than months of sending private messages back and forth.

After the initial writing back-and-forth stage, I Skyped with the majority of my online friends. So basically phone chats, with camera. In my experience which is no way like some peoples terrible experiences, I have not come across anyone who was other than they said they were.

I have met a few of these persons in "real life" away from the interwebs. One of which has been my closest friend since I was 15 and he 16. He is also now married to someone he met online, and was most definitely who she said she was, and they have been married for almost 10 years now.



Now, I know that my experience differs from other's experiences. Not everyone will have good experiences online just as not everyone will have bad experiences online.

But in my -personal- experience. Yes, friendships can be had online. And yes, they can be had with the opposite gender.

I don't really have that much experience with it because I've never really been all that interested in a long term relationship with someone. Not a romantic or sexual thing, anyway. I have tried to be friendly (platonic) with females I see on various forums just to see if I could possibly strike up a normal friendship with them. Really that was just out of curiosity because I had always wondered if it was possible for me to relate to a female the same way I do to a male.

Unfortunately, I guess, I just can't do it without thinking about how attractive they are. Obviously, I'm only really going to be interested in women I find appealing. As a typical dude I don't have a whole lot in common with the average woman. I could cover pretty much everything we have in common in a couple of hours. And then what?

So I guess in a way, whenever I have tried a normal friendship with a woman what I was actually trying to do was have kind of a halfway romantic relationship without making anything too serious out of it (Never mentioned sex or any kind of serious feelings or anything). That didn't fly either. Of course maybe if I had explained it to them there might have been some kind of reciprocation but I guess I just assumed they would kind of get my drift. Which they didn't. Or they did and just weren't interested or just found me dull and boring. Or I guess maybe women just assume a man who starts communicating with them online will make a real move sooner or later and I just never did. So maybe that was confusing.

a reply to: Profusion

This guy nails the subject ..

originally posted by: lavatrance
a reply to: Profusion

married couples are always trying to cheat. Glad I never got married

Your world must be full of unhappy, insecure people, at least the married ones. It's simply not true.