Has anyone heard of this sad internet tale: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-01-22-web-love-triangle_x.htm Has real life become so tedious that people are now resorting to fictitious internet identities and allowing those fictions to over-ride their everyday existence? Is this brave new world simply one of escapism?
Yes but what happened to Thomas? What's the point in forging a friendship based on fiction? And what form of boredom could prompt a housewife to use her daughters identity to find people to chat with? Its obvious that none of the parties expected to ever meet so why bother with a farce? I find it all very, very strange. And let's not forget the poor bugger who got shot over nonsense.
I don't think this is all so new. This sort of things has been happening for a long time, just in somewhat different mediums, with different knick-knacks. People have been lying and cheating since who knows when. Whether this is in person, via letters, or via the internet, is just circumstantial.
Yea but I can understand if someone lies and cheats for a reason, monetary or even sexual but this was a passionate affair based on...well nothing. They lied because they were bored or what? I mean where were they going with it? Also I thought middle-aged housevictims were too busy to for such idleness
Lucysnow, I would suggest you read some 19th century romance novels. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Or "Wuthering Heights", the love story between Heathcliff and Isabella Linton. The chapter where Heathcliff notes how he tortured Isabella's puppy, but Isabella just giggled, totally in awe of Heathcliff. I found what Heathcliff said there to be very instructive, but I won't tell you the whole thing here!
I have read the Brontes. See at least Heathcliff and Isabella had a real connection, their worlds were connected, their love or passion was real in the context of the story. The story in the link is about people with no connection whatsoever, their was no passion only an imaginary one feeding off of someone else's imaginary world.
You must mean Catherine Earnshaw. I'm talking about Isabella Linton, the girl Heathcliff actually married. Ah, it's always like that anyway.
GB: I'm talking about Isabella Linton, the girl Heathcliff actually married. Oh sorry I'm confused. Yea okay but at least they were MARRIED and the marriage though not a love-match was 'real'. You seem to think the above story normal or natural and I don't. It seems to speak of a deeper social dissociation.
I think being in love is always a "deep social dissociation". The stuff people do when in love - whew! From having the adored's name tattooed, thinking about them 24/7, to suicide.
BUT THERE WAS NO LOVE! They never even spoke over the phone, it was love site unseen. Its right up there with the guy who quit his job and then blew his brains out because he was spurned by an EverQuest character.
its easy to fall for someone who knows what words to type, and what to say, all they have to do is knock your fealings and thye are in,
Uh. Watch "You've got mail" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, for example. That story went tolerably well, though. I can't think of any blockbuster film with a very bad ending of an online affair right now; most of them are "true story" TV films, and there's plenty of them. My point with bringing up romantic 19th century novels - as well as modern romantic films - is that this is the stuff that occupies the minds of many people, both as writers and creators of such stuff as well as consumers. And it's nothing new or recent. The more a person thinks about something, the greater the chances they'll actually do something about it. With the people in the OP story - It probably started with those involved having unfulfilled romantic desires (as do many people), they played on that a bit - and then things took a course of their own, snowballing. It's not like they've planned it to end the way it did.
Perhaps their lives were just so empty that they had nothing better to do with themselves. Who the hell dies over such a convoluted bit of crap?
I know people who live double lives with people they meet online and have never met in reality. Personally I'm way too curious to be satisfied with such a half baked relationship, but from what I've heard, the low likelihood of actually meeting is what many people go for, since they are too comfortable with their present lifestyles to overhaul it, but still want the thrill of a secret romance. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! One girl I know has 3 online "dates" and a completely separate real life. She gave up on meeting them after one earlier disappointing episode (the guy was too "excited" and in a rush to jump her bones apparently) "Much better just cooing online", she says. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
But take note that false identities begin not so much as false but as a means to convey one's true presence. A presence doesn't necessarily need to reflect an exact facsimile of one's domestic environment because that particular environment will not initially be bothered with—nor will it be intended to. On the other hand, it isn't everyone who requires the mechanism of an identity to convey one's presence. But those people I think are more fulfilled.
Don't defend humans so absolutely. This is a subject for critique, not justification. The answers to the original questions were "yes", in most circumstances. We are capable of understanding ourselves, and thus beginning to realize how horrible we are. I'm just waiting for the day for a psychotic millionaire to create his own nuclear explosive and pass righteous judgement. Albeit wrongly, I would still be amused - before being obliterated.
I dont think the internet invented mental cases. Who would expect complete honesty? and only a fool would be completely honest. This is no new world, new technology same people.
^ Honesty about what exactly? For example, the housewife began as her daughter as one would jump off a diving board. Then, unfortunately, one thing led to another.
