Is Elliquy Cheating?

[Lyndis]

Additional post because I had a thought I'd like to get people's perspectives on:

Is it possibly that this sort of mentality has become more prevalent as online dating and long-distance relationships have also become more common?

I had a friend who was 'dating' someone for almost 5 years, last I heard. They never met in person in all that time despite it ( which made me have my own ah... thoughts, on the legitimacy of their relationship. But that's neither here nor there ), and one fight I was privy to was about my friend engaging in romantic roleplays on Tumblr.

I suppose something like that becomes a lot more threatening when there isn't any physicality to speak of in the relationship. Or maybe more specifically, any real intimacy (since sex doesn't make a relationship). Though in my opinion, both her roleplays and her relationship circled around that same sphere of fantasy as neither really existed in the real world.

Opinions?

[Wistful Dream]

As someone who originally met their spouse online, and has met a lot of friends online, including several I've never had the joy of seeing in person but talk to daily the notion that those connections 'don't exist in the real world' is honestly really off putting.

Physicality is one aspect of a relationship, and it is a lovely one, and a common one, but it is not the sum total of a relationship.

It sounds like there was a misfire on expectations between them and their romantic partner, not that role playing invalidated a relationship.

[Lyndis]

As someone who originally met their spouse online, and has met a lot of friends online, including several I've never had the joy of seeing in person but talk to daily the notion that those connections 'don't exist in the real world' is honestly really off putting.

Physicality is one aspect of a relationship, and it is a lovely one, and a common one, but it is not the sum total of a relationship.

It sounds like there was a misfire on expectations between them and their romantic partner, not that role playing invalidated a relationship.

I mean no offense to folks who happen to find meaningful relationships online. I have several years-long friendships myself that I haven't had the pleasure of meeting in person, but they're still very much real world friends to me.

Yet I'm also presuming you and your spouse now share a space and a life together in that way. Whereas the friend in my previous post never did and had no pressing desire to do so. I think there's a different level of seriousness to a committed monogamous relationship when you're focused on sharing a life together as opposed to living entirely separate ones, especially over a great distance like states or countries away.

I also have zero experience online dating. Hence why I'm looking for opinions on the matter from others.

[Wistful Dream]

I personally think that's a bit of applying the relationship cookie cutter, trying to make all 'serious' romantic relationships look the same way.

What works for people is wildly different. I have a close friend who's spouse is home maybe a week a month, typically they travel, a lot. It works for them. I've known married couples who intentionally live apart. My own spouse and I had a serious conversation at one point about living long distance due to career opportunities neither of us wanted to pass up.

A relationship, a connection, is as real or not real as two people make it. Not everyone has the same needs in a romantic partnership, and it sounds like your friend didn't identify physical nearness as a need in order to love this other person.

[RedPhoenix]

That seems like a red herring to me. People have gotten upset at people they are dating for writing with others when they have purely real world relationships as well. I don't think one makes it more or less likely.

I say this as someone who would have a hard time saying I was dating someone I'd never met too, fwiw.