Can you fall in love with someone you have never met?
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Can you fall in love with someone you've never met? As much as we human beings want to answer this question, "Why, yes, it's possible. You have to love someone for who they are within, not what they are on the exterior," or, "Of course! You shouldn't judge a book by its cover," or a slew of other reasons that make us believe we're really "good" people on the inside because we don't judge people based on looks, that is nothing but a huge guise the majority of people live behind. Also, falling in love with a person whom you've never met, and falling in love with the same person and how they are live in the flesh can be two completely different experiences.
First and foremost, we have to determine what kind of "love" we're talking about here. I am a firm believer that you can "love" anyone in a variety of different forms of the word, and for a variety of different reasons. For the sake of argument, we'll stick to the classic head-over-heels kind of love.
This head-over-heels kind of love I think comes with many stipulations, which I believe are stemmed from being surrounded in a society that shoves fairy tales and happy endings into our faces, raising us to believe what "love" is supposed to be. This in itself can spark a whole section of questions to list the varieties of "love," but we'll save that for another day. Ultimately, I do believe that it is possible for people to see beyond these stereotypes and figure out how to achieve this glorious feeling referred to above. In the end, you should love someone on the inside and outside to really be "in love."
To love someone on the inside, you find similarities between yourself and this special person. Sometimes you share the same taste in extracurricular activities, sometimes you endure the same religious rituals/beliefs, and sometimes it comes down to things like having the same obscure taste in ice cream flavor or the way a tube of toothpaste is squeezed. These interior trait resemblances are things that are important in falling in love and staying in love for years to come. These are things that really make up the base of a relationship. These are the things that live past the exterior of any person. So it makes sense that the possiblity exsists of someone genuinely falling in love with some one's interior before meeting them.
So how exactly does someone fall in love without meeting? Nowadays there are a variety of different methods available, especially since the Internet has become a widespread method of communication around the world. People can interact in chat rooms, via Myspace or Facebook, a handful of dating sites, or perhaps the possible chance of stumbling across some one's special skills/services website. Regardless of the scenario, the medium is usually the same: casual chatter is typed between two people which may develop into regular emails. This can lead to an exchanging of phone numbers which can segue into text messages, and then ::gasp!:: an actual phone call. The basis of the initial getting-to-know-you stage is via written words. The problem with the written word is that it can be edited. Not only can it be edited to make yourself appear a certain way, the written word that reaches the other party involved is usually internally censored, thus making it hard to tell how the person actually is in real life.
So here you are, interacting with this "person" and what they've led you to believe is their true self. You've maybe exchanged photos and have accepted what this other person looks like because you're "fallen in love" with what you believe is who they really are. Now granted, the things they've told you and what you've learned about this other person may genuinely be true, and you maybe actually have many things in common and you may think they're your soulmate, but the one thing that can't be portrayed in real life are a person's mannerisms. I think this is an exterior factor that people overlook.
I'll use an example from my own recent encounter with this exact situation. I had posted a single's ad on Craigslist, and this guy I met was through a response to this ad. The delivery of his response was impeccable. I took notice to his imaginative way of expressing his feelings through whimsicle metaphors and fabulous grammar. His hobbies were similar to mine; we experienced many of the same things in past relationships; we had a lot of the same beliefs in a number of diferent subjects. This began the list of obscure similarities that I would not have found had we initally met face-to-face. We emailed back and forth, and developed a rapport and online relationship. We had so much in common, things I never thought I'd have found in anyone! I was smitten. We had even exchanged photos and I thought he was cute, so the physical attraction was even in exsistence.
The friendly emails turned into a swapping of phone numbers and regular text messages followed. This lasted for a couple months. It turned into text flirting and the sending of romantic thoughts and messages. It was really sweet and kind of surreal. Eventually we graduated to phone conversation--our phone conversations were even great! In fact, one lasted almost 8 hours! I started thinking that maybe it was possible to find someone online that I could genuinely care about. And I felt that since we had gotten the "get-to-know-you" crap out of the way, we could start to develop something in person and it could actually last and possibly go on to be an epic love story.
One day we finally decided to meet. We had arranged a casual meeting just to hang out and chat. To my surprise, this guy turned out to be completely different in person! He was annoying, high strung, and just a bit overwhelming...nothing like he had made himsef out to be during our prior interactions. I thought it just might have been first meeting jitters, so I gave him another chance. We chatted on the phone again later that night and he was back to the "normal" guy I had initially met, so we planned another date. Once again, as soon as we were together in person, he was back to the obnoxious guy I had first met the first time. His true life mannerisms were COMPLETELY different than the ones he had in writing and on the phone. I was appalled and disappointed. This is where the magic was lost and what could have been epic turned into horror.
I can't say I fell "in love," because I'm not one to just go throwing those words around everytime I meet someone, but I was "in like." This one prime example makes me think that you can't truly know someone without spending time with them in person. The words he had put in emails and the way he carried himself in phone conversation were entirely different than the person he was in real life. The person I had gotten to know didn't actually exsist, except in my virtual fantasy world.
There is no way I could have found out about our incompatibility without having met in person. I didn't actually know this guy. If you do not truly know someone, you cannot truly fall in love with them. So, as much as someone thinks they're "in love" with someone they've never met, they cannot say they love the person whole heartedly until that fateful day they finally share the same breathing space together.
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I am so agree with you without meeting with person we can never know the person actual personality how can we beleive in today's time when people are having live in relationship before they get married as it is true what ever we write coz we like those things but your actual things come up when other people judge you they actually tell you when they spend some time with you so how can we imagine without meeting him or her
I believe it's because your voice reveals the truth of who one really is. Listening to a person's voice awakens your ability to discern the intentions of the other party. Boy, I guess that why my husband and I spend so much time on the phone when we're apart. It kinds of reminds me when he would call late at night and before we'd knew it, we had talked into the dawning of a new day!
I agree, but one thing i can speak for myself when I say, I am the same through written word on a piece of paper as I am in person. Your right it may look good on paper or online. But are you really that person you speak of in person. That's why I say be true to yourself and to others because it makes a grand life to live.
Loved reading this. I felt foolish to believe that I may have been falling for someone I've never met, but it's nice to know that other people have felt this way.
hello there. The greek lanquage distinquishes "love" from "in love". Of course you cannot love someone if you haven't meet with this person but i believe you can easily fall in love with someone just by talking to him/her, even online, better on the phone. I think when you are in love, you mind does most of the work and not your heart. True love needs years to be achieved. To fall in love... just a few seconds and in my opinion, even without physicical precense. Been there! Great hub!
This is a very good topic, and you handled it well.
The thing about internet relationships is that they are somehow more disposable than other relationships. It's like those things they used to sell called "sea monkeys". You interact with them and then put them away when you're done. The potential for really knowing someone is here. But so is the potential for being deceived in the most profound ways. My father, before he died, was quite the internet Romeo. I later found out he had been mailing my pictures to some poor woman in Asia, representing it as himself. Long story, but she contacted me and was devastated. Oh, confessions of lifelong love were exchanged, whispered intimacies. It's the ultimate playground for the player who doesn't have the looks to work the game in real life (the kind where you actually see people in person). I think these internet relationships are often an avoidance mechanism for people who don't have the courage to make changes in their real life. They idealize some stranger, foisting upon them all their hopes and dreams. In the end, they're only in love with their own thoughts.
But, yes, it is possible to fall in love with your own thoughts about someone, then meet that person, and be confirmed. It's all theoretical up to that point, I agree.
(my 2 cents)
yes, it is very possible to fall in love with an unkown person or someone you have not met yet ( no, Im not talking about lusting after a musician, tv or movie star, etc.)
Love works in mysterious ways and we really do not have control over the one who falls in love with us and the one we fall in love with. Hopefully if the constelllations are in allignment, the 2 unknown lovers meet and may not realize it, but instincivly know that they have met their unknown but destined love.
BLESSED BE
I didn't want to believe it. I have better sense than that. I have fallen for him though. Perhaps I am lost in my own thoughts. I have not seen his eyes so I can not blame them. I must take full responsibility for agreeing to meet him. It is an act of hope that is very much unlike me. He is making his travel plans. He says life is too short to wait. I say that I trust no images in this desert of waiting. I need to see him laugh. I can not make him the promise he longs for without it. If he is the man he appears to be, then it is true, love can be seeded in the mind. It just takes time for the vines to reach the heart.
to a certain extent, the answer is yes...if you communicate in somekind of way before you meet them, it's a possibility of that happening. providing you are telling the truth. you can talk by way of phone, e-mail and I guess the new thing texting. other then that how could you come to love them. that's like i hear a name or see a man in a movie and I claim to love him. not saying i didn't like movie stars when i was young. you do have to at least know their name to begin to even know if you like them or not.
Good reading. Definately needs to be discussed.
Conversely, my wife an I have parted and, to our surprise, still talk regularly on MSN. It seems we couldn't live together but can 'Chat' together quite happily. And yes, of course I still love her!!
this is a very interesting topic, i enjoyed your take on it.
hhmmmmm.... well!! thoughtful hub.. its right that everyone has different personalty while talking on phone or chatting and when we meet in person... because when you talk on phone or chatting.. you try to put best about you.. only thing you are concentrating is that person in front of you.. bt when you meet in person.. whole surroundings and nature becomes a part of ur personality.. hence.. characters are defined... lovely thought..
Thanks for sharing...
keep writing
I have suffered from this many times...i am afraid that i live in my thoughts,in my heart i love(i am very emotional),in my brain i don't and i now the world isnt perfect..these two feelings contradict each other so badly my head gets so mixed up....i feel like a loser in one way but in the other i think that understanding the difference gets me out of trouble with relationships that aren't ment to be...
i am going through this right now. i fell in love with a woman's profile because everything she said was the same thing i was going through. she was fed up with guys hurting her and falling victim to guys who dont know what they want. Then you look at her pics and you cant believe someone would toy with such a beautiful yet innocent lookin girl. It made me want to cradle her and protect her from the big bad world shes been living in. Funny thing is, after i told her i would like to meet her because i know we would get along well, she tells me "you're a great friend" which if you been around the block, you know that means she is not into you. Bad enough i had to deal with that, but now she just reads my emails but doesnt reply. And this is driving me nuts. I dunno if what i am feeling is hurt or leftover love that i grew for her. As much as it creeps me, i admit i like the drama. How long before i snap? i dunno.
My sister's best friend got me to being pen pals with her husbands young brother years ago and it was really fun and I did fall in love and was sure he did too but when he found out I was two years younger than him he got very mad and that was the end right there. It hurt, But I got over it. It was his lose.lol
Love is the Bond seen through the hidden eye at the heart. Its a pull if some one is gonna meet you no matter how far that person may be they meet. And sometimes knowing a person and living for whole life love doesn't occur.
Love is like ocean calm and deep where the waves of millions emotions evolve and submerge some are big some are not unnoticeable. But the beauty of it is that they are from the 1.
If two people communicating on the Internet have never in person and deem themselves to be a couple and emotionally attached, it is a delusion. Not to say there is never an exception, however, it is the rule.
Very interesting. Voted up!
It happened to me, I've met someone online, he was totally adorable, we've talked by phone and chatted for a month or two, then decided to meet up...I felt like I had feelings for him, sometimes they were strong.
But in person, he was totally completely different.
I did not like anything about him, his smile, his awkward walk, no sex appeal, his hair, the way he dresses was horrible, I had a nightmare of a vacation coz I had to fly 3 hours to meet him, but he was kind to me, but overbearingly rude and angry to everyone else all the time, I was SO disappointed, i was glad to get back home and exhaled :)
i feel in love to and did not met him
yes i strongly believe you can fall in love with someone you have never met.
LondonGirl 3 years ago
I agree with you - meeting is very important indeed. A really well-written and thoughtful hub!