How to meet people on the internet and in networks

Every day millions of people connect to the Internet to interact with others.

Some just look kill dead hours or spend some time chatting, for fun or need of company. Others venture into the network with the illusion of running into like-minded people with whom to share their hobbies, flirt or even find a partner.

They are people from the real world who, by leaning out of the window on their screen, access a virtual world in which the face of others blurs and in which they can come to believe that they know or feel something for someone even though they have never seen it.

Whether that belief materializes in a face-to-face meeting only depends on their agreement. But for both of them to meet the person they thought they knew, although it is not impossible, it can be more difficult.

Because Just as the Internet promotes disinhibition and intimacy, it also gives rise to idealizationand it can favor the meeting as well as the disagreement.

Meeting people online: the good and the bad

In today’s society It’s not always easy to meet people. We often move in tight circles. where rarely anyone new enters and, in bars or nightclubs, not everyone feels comfortable approaching a stranger.

The Internet allows you to connect with different people. with which it would be difficult to coincide or start a conversation on a day-to-day basis. In a chat you can talk with an engineer fond of role-playing games as well as with a retiree who paints, a machinist student or a surfer philologist.

One could run into them on the street or in a bar, but if they are in the network it is to communicate and that paves the way.

The option to connect Internet to meet people has often been seen as a last resort to which those who fail to establish solid relationships in their daily life take refuge, especially among those who are not digital natives.

However, this happens less often. Young people already grow up knowing that meeting people through a digital network is an option and, in any case, more and more people around us have met friends or has bound or found a partner online or know directly or indirectly of someone who has done it.

One of the problems is perhaps that for many years those who connected with the intention of finding friends or a partner, for the mere fact of doing so, were judged for accepting or revealing a need or aspiration –that of seeking new relationships– It is perceived as a weakness.

The screen is seen, in many cases, as a protectionand the fact that some portals were paid did not contribute to breaking the stigma.

But the truth is that, even by force of use, The Internet has become a means to interact and meet people like any other, with its advantages and disadvantages.such as a night bar or the gym, the weekend course or the office of the new job.

Are the people you meet online authentic?

The big difference is that through the computer screen you don’t usually see the person with which we interact. Many times the only reference we have about her is the reality that little by little is woven with our words and photographs. It is true that the possibility of chatting brings us a little closer, but true contact is still missing.

In some respects it is still like in the old days when people knew each other by letter, but with the possibility of interacting with many more people and with total immediacy. And these variants greatly transform some rules of the game.

On the Internet, a person can be as they believe they are or as they want others to believe they are.

On a day-to-day basis, we can all put on a mask to a greater or lesser degree, try to give a different image of who we are, but there are many details that give us away: a look that is turned away, a stutter, a tone of voice that does not match what is being said…

The body emits signals that others can pick up, and more easily if we meet face to face. TO around us a whole social network of flesh and blood confirms, besides, that we are who we say be.

Anonymity, invisibility and the lack of references make it much easier on the internet to put on masks and falsify identity: although there is more and more information about all of us on the net and everything is more interconnected, there is not always an easy way to verify that what the other says is true.

One person approaches another as in a costume ball: not knowing if he is who he says, knowing only what he appears to be. If you post a photo or send it by email, it may be retouched or false.

You can’t even be sure that everyone you try to contact or chat with is a user like us. After all, behind the portals there is always a business, and some include fake profiles to attract customers or they hire “cheerleaders,” whose job it is to liven up the conversation.

lying is a risk what to run on the internet and forces to be prudent. Now, the lie can only occur where the truth can.

Break shyness to meet people online

Both in chat and in contacts by email with strangers, not being seen and being anonymous allows you to feel comfortable and less constrained by some of the conventions and conditions that govern face-to-face relationships.

One is alone in front of the computer. Even if you reveal your identity or send a photo to show what it looks like, if you don’t connect the camera, you can’t see him live or hear him: the frowns of the eyebrows are not perceived, nor the yawns, nor the looks of disapproval that in each other’s presence they would make us think twice about things before saying them.

Besides, the status is, even if only initially, neutralized: through the screen you can’t see the clothes, the car or the quality of the house.

All this greatly facilitates disinhibition. Protected by the screen you can be more playful, more intrepid, more direct. You can even explain things that in person are not usually revealed unless you have enough confidenceeven negative aspects about oneself.

Just as you could lie by being able to open up more, by being able to show and even develop parts of one’s own personality that remain hidden in other situations, You can also be more yourself.

show itself in a purer way, without the social conditioning of the image and verbal communication, It can help you get to know yourself better, both to the other and to yourself.

With the confidences and the immediacy of the communications, a paradoxical illusion of closeness which immediately gives birth to a deep feeling of intimacy.

Although photos are exchanged and appearance is important (the first thing most users do is ask for a photo), the way they communicate makes the physical is often relegated to the background.

One feels the other far away, because they don’t know what it is like, how it smells, how it moves, but at the same time they feel very close.. It’s fair the opposite of what happens in face-to-face relationships. In these, the first thing that is seen is the physical, and intimacy does not arise until one begins to know each other well and trusts the other.

But, on the other hand, one must be attentive to the use of screens as shelter:

The screen, in the same way that allows communication with other people, You can also distance yourself from those around you. On the internet it is easy to feel protected from one’s own fears and inhibitions.Someone who prefers to chat to meet friends or spend time with family You may be using the network as a tool to isolate yourselfLetting yourself be dazzled by the intensity of the relationships that develop on the Internet can lead to aa compulsive search for new contacts and stimuli that ends up leading us to neglect our relationship with others.The illusion is created that we are interacting and our social network is increasing, but in fact it may be shrinking. The Internet must be a complement to life, not a way of life.

The risk of idealization when meeting people online

The feeling of intimacy combined with the lack of a physical experience of the other person makes in cybernetic relationships is more likely to idealize than in a face-to-face meeting.

“The biggest problem with the internet is the idealization of the other: one builds it in his head without seeing it“, explains Jordi Oller Vallejo, psychotherapist expert in transactional analysis.

“This already happens in real life: the other is being built from the data that is obtained, verbal and physical data, and in the worst case it is idealized. The more it is idealized, the less our construction resembles what the person really is. But on the internet it happens more, because the experience of the person is not so direct.“

The lack of direct experience can be mitigated with a microphone and webcam, but it’s not a completely satisfactory solution. The quality of the image sometimes leaves a lot to be desired and, if the connection is not very good, it shows the image with a few seconds delay or syncopated, so that You don’t just know very well what the other’s reactions respond to. In addition, details are lost and it is not worth relating to others.

The gaps that are emerging in conversations or in email exchanges, what is not known about the reactions of the other, it is easy to leave optimistically filling in what we would like to find.

“Depending on your deficiencies, the expectation that the other is going to give you what you want is created,” explains Jordi Oller.

So the capacity that each one has to create more or less realistic expectations will influence, When the time has come to meet in person, when the frustration is greater or less.

Precautions when meeting people online

Not all virtual relationships are born with the objective or expectations of materializing in a real meeting. But when this is the case, for the relationship maintained in the network to stop being an abstraction and to continue advancing, there comes a time when it is necessary to take it to the physical terrain and check if the idea that one has formed of the other corresponds with reality.

When staying, it is advisable to take a few minimum precautions. No matter how much you think you know someone, you should not forget that there may be lied. You also have to be prepared for the disappointment and frustration of having imagined the other as he is not. Or the other way around: that he has imagined us as we are not.

For the appointment, however, it is not necessary to wait too long. In fact, many people use the internet to establish a first contact and, after exchanging a few emails or chatting several times, remains without knowing much about the other. The risk of not understanding each other is higher, but the risk of idealization is lower.

Not much is expected from the appointment, but you are open to spending time with someone simply because they have made a good first impression.

What should not be forgotten is that the Internet is a means, not an end. LChats and emails can never replace face-to-face relationships, but they offer a way to start themlike the dance of yesteryear, the beach or any other space that gives rise to getting to know each other.

Those who enter barefaced and leave the door open…