May 12, 2007

Online Relations - Part 2

The internet could be like any place for meeting other people, just like the bar, the club, weddings and so forth...The only difference is that you could hide your identity and looks to be who you always wanted to be, but never had the guts!! The truth is discovering the identity of a cyber character is so much related to luck, then comes time, personal differences and a high degree of transparency and honesty. With all the previous factors available the cyber character will be a reflection of the real character, the internet then will play the role of a mirror. But in most cases the internet is a lens that changes the output character. Part of our hidden self gets out under the spell of anonymity. The idea that no one knows us in real might be tempting to many people to do what they shame to do in public.
For instance, browsing a sex shop online will be more convenient for most of us than getting into a sex shop in real (this apply for those who live in a place with sex shops!!). Talking about taboo topics, openness to meet knew people and even socializing online is easier to a great extent than doing it in the face to face world.
Using the internet as a fun tool, in the way Omar and Nadeen implied is the extreme case described by the cartoon posted by Ossama.
Faking characters to manipulate people’s thoughts and feelings in order to have fun such a behavior can be least described as childish behavior.
And I guess the real problems that arise because of internet arise in that section, where girls get online to have fun and boys to get the freebies.
The question Nadeen posed about meeting someone online and getting attracted to him/ her in the middle of the fun process is really serious as the thing is even meeting someone online while not playing and having fun never means that there is a way you can know him/ her is the one. Given the other person is honest and is open but yet when we like we only like the text format of that person. Things can never be serious unless this text format is upgraded to a fully executable format. The same process Hanney described in his story of meeting his wife, chatting on daily basis for a certain time till both of them felt that they need to leave the virtual world to the real world. Then dating and walking the steps of a healthy relation. The unhealthy relation is calling a “.txt” like the mighty name of love. In Hanney’s story the internet was a mirror and a medium to meet just like anywhere else, in the case Nadeen describing the internet in a lens that enlarge or minimize the original object. Or even it is an artist who draws someone who doesn’t exist.

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