I meet a lot of people on the internet. Some of those people I do eventually meet in real life, through one circumstance or another. It is always interesting to talk to people online and then meet these same people. There's always an element of surprise. No matter how long you know someone from the internet, no matter how many hours are spent emailing, sending instant messages, hell, even talking on the phone, nothing can prepare you for meeting in real life. There are always unknown elements.
Sometimes these elements are pleasant: there are times that I've met people with whom I did not get along well online, who ended up being very pleasant people in real life. Another version of this involves people who tend to be rather simplistic typers, sometimes downright taciturn, who end up being quite gregarious and convivial in real life. These people have often confused me--why misrepresent oneself so unflatteringly? But I suppose some people might appreciate such brevity. (I, for one, am not one of these people. I strive for a personality online, something to prepare me for the real person.)
On the other end of the spectrum, there are those people who seem wonderful online, and on the phone, and who are either horrible people in real life, or simply people with whom one does not connect. This latter scenario happened to me several years ago with a gentleman whom I visited one summer, who lives on the opposite side of the country. We talked for months. I found him to be intelligent, witty, acerbic, and quirky, not to mention having a unique sense of taste in fashion, interior design, music, and movies. (I did not understand his obsession with having his shirts monogrammed, however.)
When we did finally meet, I had the best of hopes--and they quickly effervesced. There was just simply no spark. The few days we spent together became interminable. His wit was unpleasantly dry, his personality more disdainful than acerbic. He was judgmental and elitist to an extent that made even me uncomfortable. He declined to meet some of my friends in the area, which was awkward. I barely spoke to him after this.
A tragic, event, certainly, but it could not have been foreseen. There are, however, other scenarios that can result from meeting people online, which are fully avoidable. It is unfortunate that we are often more comfortable behind the armor of the internet. In real life, we are scared, apprehensive, and self-conscious. By contact, on the internet we can be flirtatious or even bawdy, confident, and forward, if not aggressive.
But, not all of us exhibit such traits. Oddly enough, when we are faced with someone we like enough on the internet, we can slide back into our old, reluctant habit. Does one express one's admiration or attraction? To do so would be to make oneself vulnerable to rejection. We fear rejection terribly. We do everything we can to protect ourselves from vulnerability, often just to protect ourselves from the pain of rejection. By extension, we often avoid rejecting others, for we know how much it hurts to be rejected, ourselves.
This just begins a nasty cycle of non-communication that results in what is almost certainly a highly awkward, often hurtful, and definitely long-overdue "I just don't like you that way" conversation.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Some of it has to do with the fear of immediate pain versus future pain. Future pain does not exist, at least not yet; present pain does. So, why reject someone now, when you can reject them later? Furthermore, why open oneself up to pain now, when one can just endure and hopefully not have to deal with the pain later?
There is, of course, the possibility of never hurting someone--at least, not directly. This method is quite common among the males of our species--avoidance. Men hate confrontation. As much as men love to beat the shit out of each other and watch it on TV and in really, really gay UFC matches, we really hate confronting each other over non-physical matters. So, oftentimes, we just avoid it altogether, in the hopes that the other person will simply go away. And sometimes that person does. And sometimes, they don't. And when that person doesn't, then we have to decide whether we are going to finally tell that person that we do not like him, or if we are just going to ignore him completely, or if we are going to keep playing along.
This last possibiltiy also opens up the potential for acting like an asshole, to get the other person to go away on his own. This is a particularly insidious plot and is never to be respected. Any man who does this is a coward. The cowardice is a product of the system, though, the system that doesn't really allow for men to express themselves, and also the system that condemns emotional pain, both as far as giving and receiving are concerned.
( I'd like to relate to you a recent experience I had. )The moral of the story is thus: speak your mind. Don't be afraid of seeming pushy. If someone likes you, he'll say so. If he doesn't say so, ask him. Don't wait for other people to say things. Initiate the contact, and hope for the best. The worst that can happen is someone says no. And if he says no, well, you can start over. People are always going to be different in real life than they are on the internet. The trick is to accept this inevitability and incorporate it into how you interact with people.
But for the love of God, people--we are doing ourselves no favors in hanging back and trying to figure out, "Should I say something?" Yes, you should. You should tell him that you like him. And you should tell him that you don't. Both of these will save everyone involved a great amount of time, as well as shield them from unnecessary amounts of pain. A small amount of pain now is much better than a large amount of pain later.
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