When you go online to look for a date are you looking for someone to have a good time with or is it an internet dating fantasy? Both are possible because of the way the internet works. Internet dating sites allow a person to greatly increase the number of persons they can meet. Dating sites allow one to select criteria for who you want to meet and put your own bio out there in order to attract attention. In addition the internet provides us with a comfortable degree of anonymity. We can tell just part of our story or simply post fictitious life stories. We can live an internet dating fantasy by representing ourselves as someone else. Which is right? Which is wrong? For that matter what is wrong with pretending?

Let’s look at internet dating fantasy from the viewpoint of the person living the fantasy and from the viewpoint of the person wishing to meet someone special, have some fun, and find a lifetime relationship.

If two people like to play the internet dating fantasy “game” it is likely that no one will get hurt. Meet someone on a dating site who appears to be exaggerating all of the time. Call their bluff and tell a few tall tales yourself. It can turn into an enjoyable game. However, this assumes that both persons know that it is a game. If one person buys the story, so to speak, they can get hurt. Falling in love with someone on the internet, and then finding out that they not been telling the truth, is painful. For a teenaged girl who thinks she is chatting online with a teenaged boy it can be dangerous if her “boyfriend” is a forty year old married man playing out an internet dating fantasy.

Let’s assume that the person living the internet dating fantasy is not malicious. He or she simply feels more comfortable in a pretend life than in a real one. What is sad here is that the internet provides us with such a large number of people to hook up with that no one really needs to pretend. Just put yourself out there and see who shows up in your email. Too often in life we feel beaten down by life. If we are just out of a painful relationship it can be really tempting to want to hide in fantasy. This is the time to find your real life friends and do things. It is the time to spend time with people and not hidden in your room making up stories about yourself.

Everyone experiences a little bit of internet dating fantasy. We all imagine ourselves in hot relationships, dating an extremely attractive person, or being the center of everyone’s attention. People who end up in hot relationships or end up being the center of attention, however, practice the things that get them there. That usually requires real life dates so get busy and put your bio out there, the real one. Meet someone and ask to meet them face to face. Often times real life is better than any fantasy we can image.