Ok, going to make myself about as popular as a fox in a hen house but I've read all your posts and "control freak" screams out at me. You two live 000s of miles apart and you are possesive of her time on line.
You wrote....
"Another thing I should mention is that when we started getting close, her opinion(as well as mine) about flirting was that flirting, even innocent flirting, is a bad idea when one is close to someone, since it can lead to doubts and insecurities, which can harm a relationship"
Forgive me if I think you instigated this shared opinion. Are you aware that in the few posts you've written, you've used flirt or flirting 15 times, you might want to think about that.
Moreover, you wrote "we were both as close as any two people living together can be (odd as that sounds"
Odd? It's not odd, it's complete balderdash.
Where's the shared look, the smile, the wink, the mutual laughter at spontaeneous momment? Ask anyone that has had a long term relationship if they can't communicate non-verbally with their partner? The look that says a thousand words, the tilt of the head, the shape of the mouth, you may think you are close, but you're not even close to being close.
My final thought on this is twofold (a) don't meet her and end the relationship (b) find someone else, but only after you accept you don't own the other person, physically, emotionally or psychologically.
Ok folks, I know that was less than tactful....I'll get me coat.
Laptop
I may not have been quite as blunt, but I do agree with you 100%
Trying to control another person in any way, shape or form is bad news. The father of my son was that way and he eventually became physically abusive. I'm in no way saying that you are abusive Pocketful, but being overly possesive in any way is also a form of abuse. Make sure you take care of those issues before you decide to get involved with anyone because it can easily get out of hand. I've seen it a million times.
Laptop
you said: "Forgive me if I think you instigated this shared opinion. "
Well I forgive you because I did not instigate that shared opinion, it came, hold your breath, from my online partner (using partner here because I cant think of another word at the moment) and I found it a reasonable opinion. You can only make assumptions you are usually conditioned to make(unless you can think out of the proverbial box), but pardon me if I find them unsatisfactory.
As for using the word 'flirting' or being possessive about her time. I never had anything against her being silly with others or joking around or the amount of time she spent with others ( of course not at my expense). I dont think that makes me possesive or a control freak. But anything that is a blatant show of interest in another guy, yes I do object to that. Maybe I did not make it clear what I was referring to as flirting. I wonder how many of you would be calm if your 'offline' partner showed that kind of interest in someone of the opposive sex.
And perhaps I have talked more about me being possessive, which of course would invite comments suggesting I have to be careful of being over possessive. Well, in my original post I did refer to her being possessive too ( but perhaps that part gets easily overlooked on this forum). I do like her being possessive to a reasonable extent, but possesiveness in excess is the ruin of a healthy relationship.
And Laptop, as for the closeness between people in an online relationship being 'baldedash', my question to you would be, have you ever been in an online relationship? If LittleK, who based on her comment, has been in an online relationship, said it was not real or it was 'balderdash' I would stop and think twice. I and others have in previous posts commented on the lack of physical/sensory input in an online relationship, so I will not add more about that.
Thought i'd drop in to thank you all for the insightful advice and briefly update on how it ended.
I asked her to meet me but she refused. Gradually things went from occasionally bad to worse between us, eg. even the mere mention of the name of any of my female friends, even those who I think of as big and kid sis (and she knows), would make her start an argument. So now its finally over. Turns out she's gotten very close to the same guy who she would flirt with to annoy me and in almost no time (couple of weeks) even when she kept saying she wanted us to be close again. So now history is repeating itself for her. Anyway, one can only live and learn.
Yes, one can only live and learn. I still remember my mother telling me just that many times as I was growing up and it's so very true.
Happy trails Pocketful ;-)
My thoughts on reading through the posts on this topic center on the matter of progression.
There is a natural kind of progression in most relationships in regular daily life: acquaintance-ship, friendship, romance, or personal commitment, that is, a kind of waxing and waning until they achieve a status that is comfortable for both, seeking some kind of level. Thus you will find some friendships lasting for decades even with much physical absence as people move, change occupations, and so on; whatever mutual enthusiasm was there in the first place is often fairly easy to rekindle if people meet again and have time for a few hours conversation.
When it comes to romance, sure there is some element of real in romantic online attachments, but I agree with most posters here that the proof of the pudding is in the meeting, that the elements of romance can't really coalesce until the meeting.
To go on and on being romantic but not meeting seems to me to be a stretching out of a time period when face to face romances either progress into deepening love or fail. Continued endless romance is something of a 'construct' to keep shored up.
The related subject of jealousy and flirtation is a thicket of difficulty and I won't go there now except to say I agree with others, resentment about someone you haven't met flirting with another person is a little out of order. In your case, it did turn out to be an indication that your online romance partner's eye was looking around with new interest.
But - the romance had been stymied by not flowering offline. (Romance is famously evanescent, even in face to face life. The full flush of it wanes as the relationship moves ahead.)
Keeping an online romance going and going and going, as I gather you both were intending before things got rickety, is
a kind of contrivance that someone has to break out of sooner or later.
Further, if you two really did intend to keep up an online romance indefinitely, you were both in some kind of daily life avoidance, given the ages of 23 and 26. Meet people via the internet, fine (mostly), but meet them offline also.
