Just read an entertaining story about one midlife man’s experiences with social media as he emerges from a divorce and starts dating again.
His cautionary tale reminds us all that “instimacy” (instant intimacy, my word!) especially when experienced through the wonders of the internet, is often too good to be true!
It’s really no different than online dating, whether you’re making friends or trolling for your next “intimate” relationship, this is when it becomes essential to understand the concept of positive projection.
The online environment makes it far too easy to project everything you really want and need in a friend or partner onto the person you’ve just met on Match.com or Facebook. When you start doing that, you have suddenly ventured into the danger zone!
It’s really all about expectations. The higher your expectations or need for a friend or partner, the wilder your imagination can get pretending that this person, who you really DON’T KNOW, is going to fulfill all of your wildest dreams.
Trust me, I know of what I speak! My first and only experience with E-Harmony was probably fairly typical. I hadn’t joined, I was just dabbling. I filled out their enormous questionnaire and a few hours later they contacted me to say that they had found the perfect match.
OK, so I was feeling desperate! I started communicating with my “perfect match” and things were going great! We e-mailed, talked on the phone a few times and then decided to meet.
The first thing I noticed as he rushed up to my front door was that my gay-dar went off really loud! Is he gay??? I decided I didn’t care, I just wanted to get to know him as a person. We spoke for hours and had a great time, except that I felt certain that he was gay. We set up a lunch meeting for the next day.
But the next morning I didn’t hear from him and later, when I tried his cell number, I could not get anything but voicemail. In fact, I never heard a peep from him again. I never even knew if he gave me his real name.
On Monday, I went into work and asked a gay male friend of mine if a man could be 53 years old and still not know that he was gay. He said, “Yes, and the hardest part is when they finally come out, they will ask if you ever suspected it. And you can’t really say, well duh!”
There’s your cautionary tale on internet “instimacy!” After that I have always insisted on being in the same room with a real person after only a couple e-mails and maybe a phone call. I want to feel another person in the room with me and see what happens to the projections then!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great new word! It sparked so many ideas I may just do a post about instimacy.
One of the best things about the internet, which I know as a blogger you’d agree, is the ability to share so many different experiences. You know that I blog about marriage and boomers, but what you might not know is that I met my husband online.
Like you I had some questionable experiences with online dating. All dating is a risk. Heck, people, in general are risky. But without risk, there is no gain. Or, growth for that matter.
Having a long email and phone conversation with my DH before meeting him mitigated some of the risk. He answered all my carefully crafted questions with flying colors. I got to know him. More importantly, I knew me and what I needed in a relationship, just as you suggest, so I was looking for love with purpose, not out of need. Meeting him was a breeze. We’ve been together since our third date.
We’ll still working on being happily married for 50 years-hence the blog
Love=Fun
Dina
HI Dina:
I met Mike through Match.com too! But we only e-mailed twice before we met by phone and then met in person that same week.
It’s harder to make people up in your head when you have a real person in front of you, although some of us do a great job anyway! It’s always useful to check in occasionally with the real person and see if they’re what you imagined they were!
Hee,hee! Laura Lee