facebook friend say's that he's in love with me

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A friend with whom I have been chatting on facebook for the past six months says that he loves me. We've never met each other offline because he lives in India and I'm in the UK. His emotican usage had increased during the preceding week so I'd predicted that this would happen. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do or how to reply to him; I know that there's a risk of online stalkers but so far he hasn't made any suspicious requests and his interest in puzzles and philosophical topics makes him look genuine. He knows that I am an aspie and I've warned him that in real life my personality is very different from how it appears online.

Proceed with caution. While it's not impossible or unheard of for people to first "meet" and connect on the internet, and then to later meet in person and find that they really would work out as a couple, at the same time not everyone who thinks they've fallen in love over the internet is in their right mind.

It's not sensible to believe that you can know a person well enough, via only internet interaction alone, to truly love them. There may be plenty of genuine affection and liking and caring, but declaring that you believe you love or are in love with the person is a whole other ball of wax. One can only love the limited presentation of the person they think they know. Real love involves much deeper awareness of the whole person.

If you want to keep this friendship, try not to encourage his expression of these feelings, and make it clear that you think of him only as a very wonderful friend to have on Facebook, but nothing more can happen. If, that is, what you want.

If he responds by cooling down and stepping it back to where things were, that's great, but if he goes on with this escalation, and you're really don't want things to go in this direction, you might have to get much tougher and think about cutting off contact.

I don't want to bring in a sour note, but also keep in mind that sometimes an international declaration of love can come from someone who is angling to move to that country and use you for that purpose, so be cautious.

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someone once told me that they were in love with me, and i told them that i was not in love so it could not have been with me that they were in love.

The correct word for this phenomenon is "crush." Sometimes the groundwork for a successful relationship can be laid online, especially if the two people involved have a lot in common and find each other attractive. Talking on the phone will take the compatibility test a step further, but there really is no substitute for meeting in person. You can meet a person after getting to know him or her as intimately as you can online, then find there just isn't any physical chemistry at all. Unfortunately, I've been there.

Yes, I agree, I said the same thing in the rest of my post.


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Tell him that you would prefer to live in his country and watch carefully his reaction.

Just block him! Problem solved!

I would think that's quite likely what's happened, though not necessarily. I think much depends on the nature of the Facebook dialogue that has been taking place. If you've been communicating deeply and warmly, it would be natural for the guy to develop more amorous feelings towards you. If it's just been matter-of-fact stuff and commonplace social compliments etc., then it would seem premature for him to have such a passion. There's also the question of reciprocation of any depth and warmth. If it's mostly one-way, that again points towards something being not quite right. Definitions of a crush vary - I'd define it as having strong amorous feelings towards somebody who isn't showing signs of the same. I suppose it's loneliness that's at the root of a crush, though loneliness isn't always the fault of the person concerned.



Oh yes. In spite of the apparent limitations, the mere exchange of words can be extremely powerful. Minds can really meet, sometimes on levels that would be more difficult to achieve in "real life." I also agree about needing to have a lot in common, which begs the question, has the guy been asking the kind of questions that he'd be asking if he were genuinely trying to work out whether or not you'd be compatible? Beware of narcissistic needs. People can fall in love with people they barely know, which is rather risky.



An internet phone service such as Skype would be cheaper, and the sound quality better, and you'd have the option of actually seeing each other's faces via webcam. Definitely talkiing "live" in that way is a good step to take if you want to explore this guy further. I agree that according to all the received wisdom, you could find that there's no "chemistry" there if/when you finally meet, though in my case the best relationship I've ever had was the result of meeting on the Internet, and I sometimes wonder whether this "chemistry problem" is anything much to worry about. In my experience you can build up so much closeness through just the written word that the chemistry seems to take care of itself. But that's only my experience, which is limited.

Be warned, though, that even if everything goes wonderfully well, you would be embarking on a distant relationship, and that brings problems of its own. You can visit each other for a few weeks easily enough, but if you want more, the UK authorities might see it as an attempt at backdoor immigration. And I think what Boo is hinting at is that the guy could be trying to use you for just such a dodge.