How to Maintain an Online Relationship

Any relationship needs work to maintain it and keep it healthy. Online or off, we need to talk to the other person regularly, share our daily events and overall share our hopes and dreams with this person. An online relationship is a bit more difficult to maintain since you cannot see or touch the person. With some creativity, we can maintain our online relationship.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Get online often. If the other person never sees you online, it is difficult for them to understand that you still want to maintain a relationship with them.

2. Advise the other person if you have will be gone for an extended period of time. Make sure they know the reasons. Decide if there are other ways to stay in touch during this time such as writing real letters instead of email.

3. Send a quick email every day if possible. It can be short but it drives home the point that you care about maintaining your relationship. A simple, "Hi, Having a very busy day. Miss you!" lets your other person know you are thinking about them.

4. Use instant messenger systems to communicate faster than email. When you know you have a block of time free, jump online, activate the instant messenger service and see if your friend is available also.

5. Create interesting new ways to stay in touch. Send photos, poems, short stories or other interesting tidbits to this person. Clip and send news articles that interest you and ask the other person what they think of this story. Maintain your online relationship by keeping it fresh and creative.