Quote Originally Posted by TomOfSweden View Post
"No matter how much and long you've talked to somebody on-line. Finally meeting them IRL is like meeting a new person".
Perhaps this is where the disconnect is occuring in your understanding of online relationships. You are basing your judgments on the premise that the relationship will eventually become F2F (thanks Sir Russell). I really don't care if Brosco F2F were like a different person (which I don't concede) because I am having a relationship with online Brosco. And online Brosco fulfills my needs. He listens to my woes. He celebrates my triumphs with me. He lets me vent my frustrations. We debate, we tease, we pick each other's brains. He is there to greet me at the end of every day. We are able to complete let our emotional communications shield drop (perhaps because the nature of online in itself provides a kinds of shield), something which I have trouble doing F2F. As pointed out, much of sex is mental, so the mental connection and D/S which occurs during our sex play makes it a fantastic sexual experience. After a year of this online relationship, I can only say good things. It allowed our mental and emotional compatibility to be the centerpiece of the relationship rather than physical attraction. In F2F, issues would arise than might make us incompatible, but online they don't matter. Example: he smokes a lot - I'm allergic to smoke; he drinks more than I think is wise; my apartment is a pigsty - he likes an orderly place; I am a workaholic - he's semi-retired. The key to an online relationship is compatibility and you cannot discover you are truly compatible unless you are intellectually and emotionally honest with each other.

I guess to be completely honest in this post, I do have to mention one need online relationships cannot fulfill - and that is the need for human touch. The mere comfort we derive from being warm bare skin to skin cannot be acheived online. But hey, nothing in life is perfect.

fantassy