The goal of many long distance relationships is ultimately being together permanently. While many couples in long distance relationships have indeed met before and are maybe even lucky enough to meet up on a regular basis while dating, a large number of long distance relationships that start online involve two people that have never yet met in person.

Driving or flying to meet a long distance boyfriend or girlfriend for the first time can be stressful and worrying. You’re dressed in your favorite frock, wearing your lucky pair of drop earrings and your irresistible go-to scent – hoping to meet their expectations.

You are hoping that the person you have developed strong feelings for online will love you just as much if not more in person. Finally meeting your long distance love can help solidify the relationship or it can lead to the relationship breaking down.

Let’s dive into your online long distance relationship first visit and hopefully give you advice on what to expect when meeting the first time. While you might be most worried about what to wear when meeting your boyfriend or girlfriend for the first time, there are more serious issues to be aware of.

Meeting Your Online Long Distance Relationship Boyfriend or Girlfriend for the First Time

Taking an online connection to the next level by meeting in person can potentially be a make or break for the relationship. In a perfect world, the bonds we make online would be guaranteed to carry over to the face to face world. Sadly this is not always the case. People have a tendency to over-glorify their lives online and the identity that is depicted via their Facebook or Instagram account. A person’s social media life can be vastly different from the everyday person they truly are.

This is why it is so important to be yourself whether you are in the everyday world or the online world. Falsely advertising who you want to be or what you think that others want you to be only make it more difficult to find a match that is truly right for you. You can’t blame someone for changing their opinion of you if their original opinion was based on a false misrepresentation of yourself which you conveyed online. By creating a false or glorified depiction of yourself online, you run the risk of your online relationship quickly turning sour when you meet in person.

By portraying your life as always glamorous or adventurous via your social media profiles, your online partner may only see you in this light and could be in for a bit of a shock or letdown when they realize your authentic life isn’t as perfect or exciting. Although most people realize that life isn’t perfect, an online relationship can make us immune to this truth as we may get used to the idea of perfection which online profiles achieve through editing, photoshopping, and omitting full truths.

When we take our online relationships to physical meetings, we can easily feel immediate disappointment based on unrealistic beliefs. This disappointment combined with the difficulties and stress of the long distance factor can give us the all the excuse we need to prematurely end a possible quality relationship. We can easily talk ourselves into thinking there are many more fish in the sea and return to our online world where the false perception of perfect relationships still exist.

Things That May Happen When First Meeting With Your Online Long Distance Love

Try not to be put-off at first if your online love acts a bit different at fists when you finally meet for the first time. While they may be outgoing and charismatic online, meeting for the first time can bring about insecurities and shyness. More often than not, your first meeting with your online long distance love will be awkward. Don’t be too quick to judge your online partner if they act odd at first. Give them time to warm up.

You do want to look for signs that the person you fell in love with online is the person’s true self. It can be easy to fake a personality online or always come up with the right things to say when you have the internet and time at your disposal to create the perfect emails, messages, and texts.

It is also easy to hide bad behaviours, habits, and rudeness online. As they always say, actions speak louder than words.  One technique you can use to feel more confident in these situations is to vet a potential partner by conducting your own email lookup or name search.

You want to make sure that the online personality you fell in love with matches the real life person. Your partner may have come off as respectful and sweet online, but if you notice they are extremely rude to the waiter or makes racist and offensive jokes in public when you meet in person for the first time, then this is probably a red flag that they could have masked who they really are as a person.

Don’t be afraid to be honest with your online long distance partner. If you quickly realize that the person they are in real life is vastly different than what you fell in love with online, tell them you think you may be better off as just friends or that the relationship may not be what you were looking for. A lot of things can come up when meeting someone in person for the first time which were hidden online. You may discover that your love is a smoker or drinks heavily. It is acceptable to have deal breakers when it comes to relationships and you have to be honest with yourself and open to the possibility that meeting your online long distance partner may lead to a quick end of the relationship.

You should never try to prolong a long distance relationship which you know is highly unlikely to succeed simply because you don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings or you don’t want to feel alone.

When it comes to a person’s looks, you need to realize that people will almost always try to put up the most appealing images of themselves online. Most people know what their best angles are and ways to make themselves look more appealing in photos. There is then of course the wonderful world of photoshop to hide our flaws and accentuate our best assets.

Taking your relationship offline and into the real world won’t allow you to hide your flaws and always be perfect. Hopefully the person you fell in love with won’t be so shallow as to only love you for your flawless attractiveness they saw online. In turn, you need to be willing to accept any flaws they may have tried to cover up when it comes to their online image.

It’s important to note that we’re talking about being accepting of insignificant discrepancies in appearance like pimples, wrinkles, and lack of makeup which can be easily altered on images posted online. If the appearance you portray online is drastically different than your real life everyday appearance, you have to be willing to accept the possibility that your online love may not be as attracted to the real you. Beauty isn’t defined by being tall, dark, and handsome or skinny, tan, and voluptuous, but with that being said, different people are attracted to different attributes and shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for what they find attractive.

If you falsely portray yourself to be a certain way, you will attract someone that is looking for those qualities you are falsely portraying and not someone that is looking for the real you. You can’t be angry with someone for losing interest or attraction if what you advertised is not what they see in real life.

Being attracted to specific physical attributes doesn’t mean someone is necessarily shallow or a bad person. You can be attracted to men with muscles or women with curves and not be a shallow person. Likewise, not being attracted to people with certain physical qualities doesn’t make you shallow either. There are a number of appalling behaviors that cumulatively make a person shallow and you shouldn’t feel guilty simply for being attracted to people with certain physical qualities and you should be accepting for others to do the same.

This is why it is so important to always portray yourself as truthfully as possible online. Whether you’re skinny or overweight, short or tall, athletic or nerdy, there are people out there that are attracted to each of these qualities. The key is to attract the person that is looking for your body type and appearance and the only way to do that is to always portray the real you.

Safety When Meeting Your Online Long Distance Love for the First Time

Meeting someone in person that you initially met online will always carry a certain degree of risk in terms of safety; it is therefore advised that you choose a public location which has at least moderate traffic.

Although most online relationships will involve genuine individuals who are truly seeking love or companionship, others could result in a dangerous situation. So bookmark the romantic holiday homes as something to look forward to for your third and fourth meet up once you’re truly comfortable with each other, but keep the first one in a public place.

It is advised that younger individuals, and by that we mean non-adults, refrain from meeting a person they met online or at the very least request that the meeting be chaperoned to avoid the possibility of sexual assault or kidnapping. Similarly, single adults who have children must be careful they are not being used by their online partner simply as a means to reach their kids.

Even strong adults with a good head on their shoulders can easily be caught up in an online romance where they become immune to red flag warnings. An individual can present themselves online as prince charming or the sweet girl next door when in fact their intentions are far from innocent. Meeting in a public space and letting friends or family know the details of your date are precautions you can take to avoid becoming a victim. You could always do a background check on someone before physically meeting but if this is genuinely needed to put your mind at ease then you should probably rethink whether you should really meet up with them at all.

 

 

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