They say that when you meet “The One,” you know right away. It’s like love at first sight, a gut feeling you have that lets you know you’ve finally found your person. However, does that work the same way when you haven’t actually been together in person? For instance, maybe you matched on a dating app and have been communicating ever since but haven’t actually carried things over to the real world yet for whatever reason. Still, what you feel for them is overwhelming and intense and you’re sure it’s real. So, can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met?
- You can definitely connect with someone without meeting them. Given how much of our lives take place online these days, it’s absolutely possible to make a real and intense connection with someone you’ve never met in person. Maybe you have the same taste in music, the same passion for activism and politics, or come from a really similar background. Without the distraction of the outside world, forging a solid connection is easier and way more intense.
- Being able to fall in love with someone you’ve never met is a whole other story. Despite the fact that your connection with this person is real, there’s a difference between having a bond with and an affinity for a person and actually being in love with them. The latter, dating experts believe, is pretty much impossible without the real world element to back it up. “Without being able to spend time with someone in person [in] real life, it could be easier to fall in lust or fall in love with an idea of who they are [versus] who they actually are,” warns intuitive dating coach and author of The Dating Mirror: Trust Again, Love Again, Diana Dorell.
- That being said, it’s not impossible. Just because it’s unlikely that you will legitimately fall in love with someone you’ve never met in person, that’s not to say it doesn’t happen. Given the many ways we have to connect with people — FaceTime, WhatsApp, texting, etc. — many of the important parts of a relationship can still be experienced long-distance. That being said, you should be making moves to bring your relationship into the real world as soon as possible.
- You should still proceed with caution. Before you’ve met someone in person, you don’t truly know what they’re like on a day to day basis. It’s easy to fall in love with someone you’ve never met (or convince yourself that you’ve fallen for them) because your connection exists within a vacuum. You may find, when you actually get together face-to-face, that they’re nothing like you imagined them to be, or that your lifestyles simply don’t mesh well. Of course, on the other hand, you could find that your feelings for one another are even stronger. Try not to let your heart get too carried away before you know it’s the real deal.
