technoculture314-09

The idea of intimacy online to me is a odd one. I don't try to judge those who start relationships online, because of course there are those few that have worked out in the past. However, I struggle to understand how one can call it a relationship? I do believe that people can be intimate without having to have a sexual experience or meet the person, despite the fact that is what many people gauge as being "intimate". I mean sharing experiences and deep dark secrets is another way of being intimate. But to have a relationship, well that of course needs to be based of trust of the other person. So how do people who have these online relationships manage that? I mean whos to say that the other person does not have 10 other boyfriends or girlfriends they are stringing along? And also, how does one fall in love with someone you have never met? Sounds to me like that terrible movie with Meg Ryan "you've got mail". Furthermore, from a young age we are taught about being safe in the cyber world, yet people are blatantly going about having relationships online knowing next to nothing about a person and just going by their typed words on the screen that "yes you are the only one for me." Of course things have moved along from just emailing a person, there is now things like skype and of course MSN messanger.
I suppose that I am just afraid of the unknown, never having used a online dating site or had a relationship through the internet. And what we dont understand, we of course fear.