thought for the day

“Most of online relationships face a dead end sooner or later.” (Yes / No)

I almost submitted my opinion on iThink until I remembered that a good friend of mine in the same network is involved in an online relationship. All this while, I have sincerely been hoping that hers is one of the exceptional few that will last, so never mind that my answer would only be my individual opinion, I just decided not to jinx it by publishing it.

Y.W. has always worried me with her lack of decisiveness all these years, in both career and relationships. So I’d like to think that I’m making a conscious effort to support her, now that she’s finally focused herself to pursue something so surely, even if it is out of the ordinary, even if it is all for the sake of love.

If normal relationships are hard work, online relationships require twice the effort. Just the other day I was reminded of the ‘danger’ of msn conversations. R.V. was seeking my permission to download something in my office for a while. So I asked, “What download?” to which he typed a curt “Never mind”. I wouldn’t have known that something was wrong till we met. He questioned why I was so fierce to him. I was shocked of course, but explained that I was merely checking to see what applications he required to use, and if he could open them using a macintosh. I think he then felt both silly and bad for misjudging me that for the rest of the night, each time I leapt from one topic to another, he’d ask me curiously, “Why the sudden thought of that?” and I found myself having to describe my train of thought. I never realised I appeared so random to friends, but anyway, my point is, it’s easy to have misunderstandings when you’re conversing online cos you tend to lose all the nuances.

And if that could happen when you’re talking to a local friend online, whom you can still meet up to chat and iron out misunderstandings, imagine how frustrating it’ll be when you’re having a long-distance, online relationship.

I’ve always admired Y.W’s patience and thirst to learn new things. In fact, there are many things that she inspires me in… so as much as I’m happy that she’s happy, my heart feels heavy each time I think that she might be staying miles away from me in future. I guess I’m afraid to lose a good friend. I’d know - I lost L.M. when she left for the U.S. Sometimes I look back and think that I did not put in enough effort in the relationship. Though we're hours apart, we could’ve arranged an exclusive chat date and time – but we never did.

But it takes two hands to clap. Just a few weeks ago, I spotted E.V’s nick… something along the lines of “I have so many on my msn list, but it’s sad that I seldom chat with most of them”. I think it’s somewhat true. We somehow have this perception that if we have someone on our list, that person is somewhat closer. But is that the truth?

A few months back, I messaged an ex-classmate via Friendster. Reason? He lives just above me but I hadn’t met him for ages. You’d think that we’d bump into each other often, but in the whole of the last eight years we probably bumped into each other maybe about three times only! I wondered if he had moved so I left him a message. He replied that he has moved, but only to a neighbouring block and asked me to add him on msn. So I did. But each time I messaged him, he’d take awfully long to reply. So I figured the times were never right since we’re all busy at work in the day but after trying a few times to no avail, I gave up. It’s too tiring. I told myself that since he was the one who initiated this, I shall wait till the next time he messages me. And if he does, I’ll put in more effort. But of course that never happened.

So with all these ‘case-studies’ in my head and determination to hold on to our friendship, I told Y.W that we shall continue our coffee dates, via video skype if we had to. But for now, more ‘live’ ones cos I don’t want to regret not spending enough time with her the very day she leaves Singapore.