internet part 2 meeting new people

In my previous post I mentioned that the Internet allows us to meet new people, for a couple of years now there has been a trend of meeting those people in real life too. Taking an on line “relationship” and bringing it out to the real world is not so uncommon, sure we’ve all heard horror stories crazy serial killers who hunt for young girls on line, but that is not always the case. Sometimes people end up meeting people they really do care for and end up having a long term relationship with them. Such is the case of my friend J.N. who met his now girlfriend on a website a few years back. Here is a brief interview;


-Could you please explain how you met your girlfriend?

J.N.-I met her about 2 years and a half ago on a networking site called www.joebudden.org, a fan site for Joe Budden.

-What about her stood out to you?

J.N.-At the time I had actually stood out to her, because of the way I acted on the site, my ability to make everyone laugh, she reached out to me, I reached back, had a few conversations, exchanged numbers, we hit it off. It also helped that both of us are good looking , oh and she's a Jay Z fan!

-How did your loved ones feel about that?

J.N.-I never shared my personal life, actually, I never shared ANY part of my life with my loved or anyone, they found out one day when I showed up with her at the door like, this is my girl. Now if you're asking how did they feel about me meeting someone online, and engaging in a relationship with them, as far as I could tell everyone was happy for me, they were pretty open minded, I think they more than likely expected it actually, I've been using computers for over ten years, I'm 24 now.

-What were your views on meeting people on line before? did they change?

J.N.-They were always the same, to me meeting someone online, exchanging phone numbers and getting together, is no more different than walking down the street, seeing someone you like and exchanging numbers. When you meet someone online, you're meeting an actual human being, not some sort of robot, but it will take time for people to understand that, close minded people just have a hard time understanding that's all, especially those who hate technology, good thing they're not the predominant species on earth, we would probably be doing this interview by mail, one letter at a time, if they're not against cutting trees down to make paper and what not
-Would you recommend this to others?

J.N-I would, to anyone, I mean for me it's actually a success story you know? So I've got nothing negative to say about it. I didn't "meet" a woman who was actually a 350lbs creepy man, it was an actual female, flesh and bones like anyone else, so yes I would, to all the people shocked reading this, women DO actually get online, I specify this only from one side because from my experience men are usually more close minded than women about this, maybe that's just MY experience though. In the end, maybe I was just one of the lucky ones, who knows? All I know is I've been with her for over 2 years, and I'm still happy.

His case is not the only one I know others who have met either friends or partners online and one of my ex-coworkers actually ended up marrying someone he met online.
While this subject seems to shine a more positive light on technology's influence on communication we must remember to always be careful when meeting people online and also remember to not give out personal information at least at first to avoid getting ourselves in nasty situations.

I've also found a clip on youtube that touches on the subject of online dating;