From online to reality

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-17-2004
From online to reality
4
Wed, 03-17-2004 - 12:08pm
I need some advice here. I have been chatting and talking on the phone with this guy for three months now. We both have very strong feelings for each other and can't wait to meet in person. My problem is two fold. Sometimes when we talk on the phone we have nothing to say to each other, it's just dead silence. We do talk every day and I'm affraid that if we have run out of things to say on the phone then how bad will it be when we do actually meet? The day of us meeting is getting closer and I'm scared that it will be a disaster because I care for him so much. Any advice?

Thank you,

LisaM

Avatar for bratgirl2002
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Wed, 03-17-2004 - 12:10pm
Try and remember that its all just "talk" until you meet face to face. I recently took the Internet to Reality jump and it worked out well....I was lucky. When you are comfortable with someone, the conversation will flow and comfortable silences are ok too.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-15-2004
Wed, 03-17-2004 - 12:22pm
I think you need to be in the mindset that typing and talking is almost irrelevant to whether you will click in person, that you are meeting a total stranger (esp. for safety purposes) and consider that neither of you made much of an effort to meet before this which to me says a lot about the extent to which both of you are more involved in the fantasy image of each other than in the reality. I think talking as much as you do is unhealthy and gives a false sense of intimacy. He is a stranger you are meeting for coffee, right - so you need to lose all the anxiety of what if since you hardly know him and have no idea if you will click in person.
Avatar for macgyver17
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 03-17-2004 - 2:57pm
I also agree and think the other posts hit the nail on the head so to speak. While you both have been chatting online and talking over the phone, it is just not the same when you meet face to face. I have done the online thing and had great online chats and discussions over the phone and then when we meet in person - there was nothing. To answer your specific question about dead silence, I do think especially in phone coversations it is normally to have comfortable silence since you are not in an environment you can't talk about events happening around you.

Honestly, I hope it works for you, I guess my point is that you are still somewhat strangers and until you meet each in person you really don't know if the chemistry is even there for sparks to fly. When you are comfortable with someone, it is normal to have some silence,

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-22-2003
Fri, 03-19-2004 - 6:57pm
Personally I feel you've made a mistake by talking to a stranger for so long before meeting in person. You have strong feelings for each other? Um...you have strong feelings for a voice on the telephone. You do not know him as a real person yet. You have to spend lots of face to face time with a person to truly get to know them well. And...the risk you now run is not that you waste so much time on the phone saying nothing, or that you won't have anything left to talk about when you finally do meet...the risk is that when you meet in person you won't like one another or there will be no chemistry between you. Then what? You're stuck in an extremely awkward position with someone who you have a false sense of closeness with, someone you've probably shared intimacies with over the phone or told things you'd only tell a very close friend...and upon meeting in person your feelings change but the history of what's passed between you on the phone is still hanging there like a big secret you wish you wouldn't have shared. Good luck. Next time only use the internet to connect with a person and emails/phone to establish the basic facts that you're both available and looking for the same thing. Then meet in person pronto and avoid all this time and emotional energy spent putting the cart before the horse.