How to Avoid Instant Intimacy Online

Instant intimacy can lead strangers to say they love each other after spending a few hours together online. Avoiding that syndrome takes vigilance and lots of willpower.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Internet Access
• E-mail Accounts
• Computers

1. Keep the chat sessions and e-mail playful for the first month or so.
2. Do some chatting in large groups to ease the romantic pressure on you and your love interest.
3. Be on guard the moment you have romantic feelings about an online friend.
4. Be sensible. Maintain a slow pace as the relationship develops.
5. Wait at least a month before exchanging highly personal information.
6. Make light of the "L" word until you're absolutely sure you want to use it with your new cyber friend.
7. Remind your partner (and yourself) periodically of the power of unjustified intimacy, and that you cannot really know each other until you meet.
8. Take a break from the relationship whenever it begins to feel like an addiction.
9. Discuss the budding romance with friends and family.
10. Mention your problems and struggles to your cyber friend when chatting or exchanging e-mail. In other words, show him or her the complete picture of your life.
11. Set up a meeting in a public place to see if the two of you can pass the "chemistry test."

Tips & Warnings

• If you're about to type something to your online friend that you would be too embarrassed to say in person, don't do it.
• Use humor to lighten up the "heavy petting" that happens so often online.
• Remember that men, in particular, open up more in cyber space than they do during face-to-face encounters. They probably cannot duplicate their online behavior during subsequent meetings in the 3-D world.
• More than any other online phenomenon, instant intimacy causes people to do silly, unwise and sometimes dangerous things. They may fly thousands of miles to spend a week sharing a bed with a complete stranger or even break up a marriage to consummate their online relationship. Never underestimate the power of this cyber force.