Janet CollinsThe Internet Bride
January 9th 2010 03:39
Skype relationship gets serious
Would you marry someone you had never actually met? In the flesh, that is. I am pretty darn sure I wouldn’t even if I was somehow swept off my feet, as the saying goes, by some constant online dating flirting.
But I am not everyone and two Americans found a really good use of Skype’s video conferencing utility last weekend and used it as a means to get married. US Air Force Captain Matt Howard, 44, is stationed in Afghanistan. Lanessa Lawrence is 35 and lives in the US and both of them celebrated their wedding separately last week - he surrounded by friends from his unit at Bagram and she in her small home study with her new in-laws and a bottle of champagne.
Stranger than actually getting married on line though is that the whole history of their relationship – all three months of it – has been conducted on line. They met through Match.com and clicked and continued to “meet” on line thanks to Skype and its video conferencing facility. In fact, since they met in September, they have clocked up 800 video conferencing hours. It gives new meaning to the term “long distance relationship”. In Howard’s words, he’s never held her hand, kissed her or been in the same room and they will be married for three months before he does. The couple plan to meet in person in April.
Internet relationships aren’t all that unusual these days and as time goes on the trend towards finding a mate on line is getting more popular each year even if there is still a noisy minority who condemn the practice. It may be a lot easier for people to lie or bend the truth online but this has been known to happen in face-to-face relationships too.
The danger element is also one that is often bandied about by skeptics too and no-one could really say that internet dating is entirely risk free. At the same time, face-to-face meeting is not entirely risk averse either. Meeting someone at a pub or a social event and agreeing to see them again is hardly 100 per cent foolproof.
In 2007, Online Dating Magazine, estimated that at least 20 million people visit at least one online dating service a month and that more than 120,000 marriages a year were the result of online dating. Most of us would know someone who has turned an online relationship into a serious personal one. I certainly know of a few that have turned into marriages.
Even with my open mind about the whole thing, I find it difficult to imagine marrying anyone before I had actually met them. An internet relationship may be one thing but I would really want to see a future partner in real life before committing to a life with them.
Of course, there are a few other benefits in taking the plunge this way. Their story made it to the front page – and even that of a mainstream Australian one. In a world where getting noticed has almost become an obsession, a story such as this one was bound to get them a lot of attention. And there is also the element of "saving the best till last". You never know they may just have started a new marriage trend.
Sourced: www.smh.com.au; Image credit: Ornelas/Express News.
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