Guys do you think it's possible to maintain an online fellowship/friendship, with possibly the potential for romance, but having not yet met in person? And if the decision, mutually, is to eventually explore the romantic possibilities but later discovering that being friends was a better fit, could or would you want to remain friends?
(I ask because good friends are so hard to find and I've always held out the hope that the level of maturity would dictate the outcome here, but from my own past experiences it didn't always work out ok......go figure!!smile)
Online friendships ... something tricky sometimes, dangerous sometimes, and good sometimes.
I have built online friends, right from the days I was using facebook, but with elderly ones, as I needed to draw from their wells of wisdom and spiritual maturity. I have used it to build up friendship with an older lady from the Phillipnes, and we communicate very well.
Building online friendship is getting difficult these days, as we don't know who is genuine and who is not, same with offline friendship too. I don't really believe that dating sites (whether Christian or not) is a good way of matching people together, although it has recorded some success stories so far, but a forum where ideas and views can be shared together. If a forum is run, the ideology, passion and philosophy of people will be revealed, in their ways of contributing to issues. From there, we can have a glimpse of the personality of people.
If sincerity and honesty is being practiced by many, there is nothing wrong in developing anything out of online friendship, either business partnership or courtship or friendship or any other thing-ship, but only quite a few have the right value of life to relate with.
Like my comment on one of sister Sissygirls' questions some months back, I wrote that we only know the beginning of a thing but not the end of a thing. Having being on this forum for quite a long time, I got to make friends with a lady on this forum, although I severed the friendship with her now, and I was able to meet with her physically for discussions and friendship but I was disappointed that her words on her profile were incoherent with the experience I had with her. While that happened, her cousin (whom I've never set eyes on till today) was able to get a job, through me, just because this lady knew me through the internet. That is how uncertain we are in life.
However, if one is looking forward to a romance with someone whom one has built an online friendship with, I susbscribe to the school of thought that one should take everything to God for guidance and direction, since He is the only One that knows all things. If it happens that one doesn't get a clear direction from the Almighty God, I believe such a one should be able to evaluate the situation of conversation and friendship on the basis of values and interests share together.
If it now happens that the values and interests are not in alignment, I believe that the friendship will begin to wear out gradually, till bond is totally broken. This has happened to me a lot; both with male and female friends that I had been together with in times past.
