I remember years ago I used to have a "cyber-wife" so to speak, we weren't actually married, but we both decidd to wear rings, so it was a title bourne out of derision of the principle of ring wearing as opposed to a ceremonial joining.
This elationship lasted for a few months until I started getting ill and moved house.
In this case, the e-relationship was based solely on the conditions of how the relationship was affected and aided by the technologyu of communication that we had. I live in Maidstone in Kent, UK and she lived in Reno, Nevada in the US, so with the many hours seaparation between time zones one thing we used to do is constantly have our webcams on and when it was time for one of us to go to sleep, the other would watch the other sleep, and vice versa. Our relationship was based solely around MSN and webcams so we were used to communicating in this way.
Wetalked about meeting up in person, but since she was in her 30s and had 4 children she couldn't feel she could emmigrate so the burden was on my shoulders to emmigrate to her in America. An idea that didn't completely grab me. I suppose it was a very good thing that I didn't emmigrate since at the rate my health was declining and the presence of expensive healthcare, for the condition I had, I probably would have died in a different country.
In the end, combined with the fact that I was beginning to consider a physical relationship with a young lady who lived in my sector of the world, I began to realise that physicl contact and physical nearness is an integral part of ANY relationship. And since I deeply value the comforts of touch, I began to value the near relationship instead of the e-relationship.
I hope this has gone towards answering your question, even if it was mainly a bit of story telling, but maybe hopefully others will read this and influence them to pluck out their views and share them.
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"We can spend the rest of our existences stomping on the ants that are mysteriously coming out from under the refridgerator, or we can remove the spoiled food behind it which is causing the infestation to begin with." - Peter Joseph