Maintain an Online Relationship

Being in a relationship has its perks, but they all take work, especially long-distance relationships or relationships essentially rooted over Instant Messenger or Email.

Steps

  1. Try to talk every day for at least an hour or longer. Take out time to be online, and work around your schedules to have an uninterrupted hour together everyday. If this is not possible, try to get in touch through short email messages or SMS.
  2. Avoid distraction. When you're talking to your significant other, talk to them exclusively, even if it's just for a little bit. It's like the online equivalent of a date or talking on the phone, and if you can give them your undivided attention then, why not online as well?
  3. Use programs that enable you to talk to them, such as the voice conversation feature of MSN or Skype or Facebook. MSN and Emails are good, but nothing beats talking to someone.
  4. Enforce the sense of closeness by asking him to play music for you over Voice Conversation, or using Voice Clips. If you both like, you could sing favorite songs together over VC, and take turns to play music for each other.
  5. To keep the spice in the relationship, send each other random playful emails at unusual or unexpected times of the day. There's nothing more pleasant than coming home after a long day and finding an unexpected sweet email waiting for you.
  6. Remember important events, such as a test they've been stressing about, and email them a good luck card (plenty of websites allow you to do so for free)
  7. Play games together online. MSN offers some good online games, and several PC games can be played with a partner, such as Audi or games at Facebook like Tetris. This once again gives a feeling of closeness despite not being physically together.
  8. Consider making a joint email account if you don't want anyone else to accidentally read an email your significant other sends you or vice versa. Make it something to do with you both, such as your names or birthdays or even favorite songs/bands, and send emails from your account to that account for them to read.
  9. Play the Anywhere Anytime Anyhow game, which works great if you both have Blackberries (which allow instant email updates) where one person emails the other person a task and no matter what the person's doing, they have to complete the task (make the tasks fun!) or Use Facebook chat box.
  10. Be romantic and send the other person random gifts, which can work even if the couple lives in different countries by checking out websites that delivers flowers/teddies in their country and placing an order online.
  11. Use MSN to your advantage or Facebook. For MSN users, let your display pictures be pictures of the two of you, and sync your MSN nicks (such as both use a line from a song you both like, or have your personal message as a countdown for when you see them next).
  12. Be involved in the other person's life. Sometimes having an online relationship can really work for you in the sense that you have things written down (in emails or conversations) and they make good reference to go over in case you're bad with names or can't keep incidents straight in you head, or simply want to double check something they said. Ask them specific questions which show that you're involved in their life.
  13. Having a fight online is probably one of the worst things because its so easy to cut someone out if Internet is the only connection between you two. Also it's hard to tell the tone from a bunch of words written on a page. Always, always, always take a step back, calm down before hastily replying and back off if you need to. Sometimes you may not mean something harsh, but the other person won't realize that and get hurt.
  14. Limit joking/sarcasm to phone conversations. Sometimes people get mixed messages from being unable to tell the tone, and don't understand if it was said in a jocular manner or if the other person meant it.
  15. Try each time you guys talk to make it interesting, don't make it to look like a boring chat, or she/he will lose interest in you! Usually, when you run out of ideas, or if you do the other should come up with other chat ideas, remember that running out of things to say will sooner or later go to a breakup!

Tips

  • Make sure you trust the other person 100% and be completely honest.
  • The relationship takes as much effort as a real life one- except the internet is your way of communication only. So grab a webcam, get skype, find a game you like, and chat your way into a perfect relationship.
  • Online relationships are hard to maintain because no matter how much love there is, nothing replaces face to face comfort. They don't always fail however, and with enough patience and compromise, both parties can feel satisfied with it.

Warnings

  • Do not pretend to be someone you're not when online.

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