Are you tired of being single and are seeking fun, companionship or someone to talk to? Are you experiencing difficulty in making human contact with potential partners?
Are you tired of being single and are seeking fun, companionship or someone to talk to? Are you experiencing difficulty in making human contact with potential partners?
Then look no further than your cellphone and your computer, internet dating sites will have you believe.
Internet relationships are not a strange concept, as dating sites have been around since the early 1990s.
They’re fun, interesting and can be very addictive for the lonely, bored and curious.
But you might raise an eyebrow when you hear of someone who's been in a relationship for a year or more and claims to be madly in love… and has never met the object of their desire.
Under various pseudonyms, masked identities or real names, people in different states, countries, or even people who live in the same area but do not communicate in person, are able to interact in friendly and romantic ways via emails, chat rooms, instant messaging programs and social networking sites.
People create appealing profiles about themselves – some not even truthful – claiming the likes of being blue-eyed, tall and olive skin-toned studs in the hope of attracting potential love interests.
Misrepresenting oneself on social interactive networks is not unusual, nor is conversing in a manner you’d never dare face to face.
The socially awkward may resort to the internet because it circumvents barriers they experience in real-life situations.
Certainly, there's a lot more control over contact in an online relationship – to the extent that you can even have a virtual-virtual relationship.
You can pay certain websites to create a pretend girlfriend or boyfriend who will write sweet and loving messages, leave cute comments and status updates on your Facebook wall, or even post attractive pictures of themselves.
A group of Brazilians are behind the Portuguese NamoroFake.com site, which offers to create a Facebook boyfriend or girlfriend for you at a cost of USD39.99 (R369.95).
And goodness knows, you could probably have as many relationships as you can afford.
As for the quality of relationships sustained over computers and online services, that's harder to vouch for.
After all, if you can fake it, what's stopping anyone on the other end of the fibre-optic line from doing the same?
Gobbledygeek is a local look at global technology trends. This week’s column was written by Ndileka Lujabe, a fourth-year Journalism student.
