The Reasons for a Virtual Relationship
With the global explosions of online sites such as Myspace, Facebook and Twitter, virtual relationships have expanded greatly in popularity and levels of acceptance.
Once regarded as the sole realm of romantic losers, social misfits and nerds, virtual dating, friendships and social lives are now common occurrences for all types of people. The specific reasons why some people engage in these virtual relationships are varied.
Business
Some virtual relationships are not romantic, but are business based. Social networking sites not only offer opportunities to expand your base of friends and acquaintances, they allows you much quicker access to people and companies in the same type business as you.
The Internet, for example, provides a new and extremely effective way to market your business, services and skills to reach near and distant persons who would otherwise never hear of you.
Illustrating this, aspiring rappers post low-budget videos of their songs online, while amateur filmmakers post their short features, and virtually interact with newfound fans, and those who might help with particular aspects of their careers.
Limited “Real World” Opportunities
An iwoman might feel that her chances of meeting someone in a real world situation are limited, and therefore seek to find and cultivate a relationship with someone online. If she devotes a lot of her daily hours to work, school or other activities that prevent her from situations where she could meet someone, a virtual relationship is sometimes an effective alternative.
With dating sites and chat rooms specifically set up for users to meet and mingle online, the opportunities are more fertile to easily strike up a conversation.
Fantasy
The basis for a virtual relationship can be to serve as a playground for a person to pretend she is someone she really is not, and therefore live out fantasies online that she cannot do in real life. In this type of relationship, one or both parties may never have any intention of actually meeting in real life.
In a romantic-type virtual relationship, one or both might already be married or in a relationship, or may not look anything like any photos that they present online as themselves.
Location
A huge factor in a relationship remaining in the virtual world is sometimes simply because of the differences in location of the people involved. Sometimes distant locations prevent two people from taking their relationship from the virtual world into the real world.
A man and woman can meet online, for example, and chat with one another constantly. But when the time arrives where they each want to physically meet, and one lives in Brazil while the other resides in the United States, visas, passports, travel prices and time away from work and home all appear as possible hurdles.
Also, two people who carry on a real-life relationship while in the same city, might use a virtual relationship to stay connected while one or both travels for business or other purposes.
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