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Communicating on the Internet, we pursue different goals. But more and more often we go there in search of personal happiness. Who are we looking for in the virtual space and who do we find?
“People meet, people fall in love, get married,” was the old song. Today, the virtual world has turned upside down the procedure for concluding a marriage union. Even without falling in love, we are already forced to idealize a potential partner who, using the possibilities of the Network, hides his shortcomings.
Many people do this on the Internet. After such an acquaintance, the outcome of the meetings in reality is unpredictable: the image in our imagination may not coincide with the harsh reality, and the online romance runs the risk of quickly ending. But there is a chance that virtual love will still turn into a real one.
Adventures of Surrogates
Social networks, dating sites, smartphone applications, online games – it seems that we have forgotten how to get to know each other “live”. And there are reasons for that. “Communication on the Web does not oblige you to anything,” explains psychoanalyst Elizaveta Knyazeva. “You can communicate with anyone without risking anything, at any time there is an opportunity to leave the game, while increasing self-esteem, try yourself in different roles, find your own style.”
Through virtual communication, we can for some time feel loved, needed and significant. All this creates the illusion that we are not alone, although it is not known how it really is. After all, anyone can be behind a photo of a cute guy or girl.
“Correspondence, audio and video calls, and even online sex are only a surrogate for communication,” says Gestalt therapist Vladislav Chubarov. – Behind any form of virtual love lies fear: the pain of betrayal and previous disappointments contribute to our movement into a virtual world where anyone who does not like can be deleted or blocked.
Fearing to be vulnerable again, many flirt with virtual reality in order not to meet real relationships. But only in them we are able to reveal ourselves for real.
In the virtual world, you can simultaneously communicate with a large number of users, but there will be no less distortion in our perception. Communication on the Web is fertile ground for thinking and projections.
“In order not to go into illusions and fantasies, charm and disappointment, the attitude to the Internet should be like a convenient tool for getting to know each other, and not as a place for developing relationships,” warns Vladislav Chubarov.
“He went on dates like a job”
Julia, 36 years old, Moscow
After several failures in my personal life, I wanted to become truly happy. Just at some point I realized that I need a serious person, without cats in a poke and skeletons in a closet. Registered on Tinder.
Sergey wrote first. Before, I would not have paid attention to him – too correct and good. People don’t usually fall in love with such people, give us hooligans. But then I chose with my mind, not with my heart. I understood what was important to me, I knew my priorities.
We called and met a couple of weeks later. Sergey practically lived on Tinder, went on dates three times a week as if he were working. But after meeting with me, he stopped. And I didn’t feel anything, a cold mind worked. I needed a quality relationship with a decent man. He turned out to be.
Sergey sought me out, every day he proved that he was a knight. It didn’t take long for me to realize that we were a couple. I started falling in love with him only a few months after we met.
Today I cannot imagine a more suitable man for me. We complement and support each other. And the fact that we met on a dating app doesn’t matter.
Who doesn’t risk?
“I registered on Tinder because I worked from morning to evening and I didn’t have the opportunity to meet somewhere else,” says 36-year-old Olga. “When, after parting with a previous partner, I felt that I was ready for a new relationship, I decided that the easiest way to find them was through the application that was created for this.”
When meeting someone in reality, we look at a new acquaintance for some time, determining whether he will become a close friend or a casual friend: we proceed from the opportunities provided by the world. On the Internet, we proceed from our needs and immediately set goals. But should others talk about them?
“In your intentions, it’s better to be as transparent as possible,” advises Vladislav Chubarov, “although not everyone does the same: many declare that they are looking for a serious relationship, and in messages they offer sex. Transparency of intentions will not protect you from all unwanted acquaintances, but it will filter out some of them.
What should our profile be like if we want online communication to grow into a serious relationship? “First of all, honest,” says clinical psychologist Ekaterina Rogushina. – Use only your photos without filters and photoshop, portrait and full-length.
Write about your hobbies, about what reflects you. Do not shock and do not try to arouse interest in any way possible, as if you by all means need to lure everyone. Write what kind of relationship you are waiting for, what you are not ready to put up with, what is your main life principle, what do you like to do.
Do not write too much and do not make demands on a potential partner. If you want to meet an honest and open partner, show these qualities on your part.
This approach comes with some risks. Recorded conversations, sent messages can be subsequently used against us, and photos without photoshop can cause negative comments from some users.
“Telling about ourselves, we hope that we will be accepted and not rejected, that we will be interesting,” notes Vladislav Chubarov, “but freedom of communication in the virtual world has a downside: here many people show aggression with impunity. Therefore, those who have already experienced this are afraid to expose true information about themselves and make contact.”
We have to constantly remember and balance: not to invent, but also not to give out information that is too intimate or potentially dangerous for us to those who can turn it to our harm.
Communication problems
Communication on the Net is like a game, although not always safe, but fun and exciting. You can try on any mask, become anyone and anything; there we respond to proposals that we would never respond to in reality, and ourselves start flirting with someone whom we would not dare to approach at a party.
“From these actions, a lot of dopamine is produced, the hormone of pleasure, which works for good if it is followed by some kind of reward,” says Elizaveta Knyazeva.
“But if nothing happens after the release of the hormone and events do not develop further, then dopamine “burns out”, and we begin to feel deep causeless apathy, a feeling of loneliness and meaninglessness of everything around. And it takes a lot of time to get over it.”
This is another argument in favor of translating relationships into reality. But if we don’t just chat with someone, but also regularly go on video calls, hear a real voice and different intonations, see a face and its live facial expressions, isn’t this enough for a relationship?
To begin with, yes, but not to continue, Ekaterina Rogushina is sure: “A necessary condition for the development of relationships is not only emotional connection and support, but the understanding that there is someone nearby,” emphasizes the clinical psychologist, “and that this someone he can always help – not in word, but in deed, that he will not run away at the first difficulties and he can be trusted.
Love does not appear immediately, but grows over time and is tested for strength. Only after such a test does deep respect for a partner and acceptance of one’s choice arise – what can be called love. With virtual communication, this is hardly possible.
But going online helps us maintain those contacts that have already developed in real life. On business trips and trips, we turn on Zoom and Skype and suffer less from separation from those who are dear to us.
Poetry and pragmatics
Virtual romantic communication has many disadvantages. It is not immediately clear whether they are telling us the truth or lying. The choice of partners is huge, but more often it is illusory. At first, self-esteem rises quickly from the received invitations for a date, but after a few meetings, we may be disappointed.
A virtual interlocutor can play the role of a noble knight, but in reality turn out to be insecure and dependent. It happens that it’s not those who like us who like us.
“Network communication is the next stage in the development of mankind, and we must go through it in order to return to true values,” Elizaveta Knyazeva is sure. “Don’t bet on the fact that this stage will bring happiness in itself. In my experience, only a few people who meet online create strong families.”
And yet today’s world cannot be imagined without the virtual world. Registering on a dating site or app does not speak of us as losers, but as those who recognize our needs.
“Time is one of the most important values in life, and dating sites and other platforms help to save it significantly,” says Ekaterina Rogushina. – The most desperate place ads looking for a wife or husband right on their cars. But it’s better to still meet with a partner with whom we matched on Tinder. ”
Acquaintance has become simpler, and the approach to it has become more pragmatic. See you? Okay. Not? Don’t worry, there are others. At the same time, we are unlikely to stop getting acquainted in the old fashioned way, live, in the near future. You can meet your destiny anywhere. The question is not where exactly, but how ready we are for this meeting.
“I confessed that I was in love”
Victoria, 29 years old, St. Petersburg
He had the nickname Frost, and I immediately noticed him on the forum, which I often visited at that time: his comments were the most profound and witty. Both of us turned out to be fans of the online game of Mafia and there we got to know each other even better. During the discussion of hot topics on the forum, we exchanged personal messages: we were on the same wavelength!
They started texting, I had a complicated love story, Frost gave advice, it was great to get them from a man who is on my side. Then I still broke up with that friend of mine. I didn’t have anyone, and one day I realized that I hadn’t thought about anyone for a long time, only about Frost.
It seemed that he was also interested in me, but we did not talk about feelings. I tried to hint, he laughed it off. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, I wrote: “I’m in love with you, let’s meet.”
But when we saw each other, I did not feel anything: in front of me was a middle-aged man, of average height, of average appearance. There was nothing from Frost in him, as I imagined him.
The first meeting was the last. He left the forum, and I never met him anywhere else. That was seven years ago, I don’t miss that man, but I still miss my Frost.