Online relationships are like any other relationship.

They take two people to make work.

These two people are from the real world.

They are flesh and blood.

This means that these two people come into the online relationship with their own distinct personalities and viewpoints.

Being online doesn’t change the fact that these are still real people from the real world.

The danger that people often face in your situation is that they tend to believe that an online relationship is different.

Since they primarily communicate with this person through an online medium, they falsely believe that somehow, all of this changes the paradigm.

It really doesn’t.

An online relationship doesn’t guarantee you perfection.

You are still dealing with another human being at the other side of that computer or smart phone.

That human being comes with flaws and a set of distinct characteristics that may or may not agree with your own.

This is what you have to be very aware of.

If you allow yourself to become romanticized by what you believe an online relationship should be like, you could ruin your chances of finding a partner.

Listen, you should approach this online relationship in the same way you have approached relationships that you have had offline.

You should build rapport and get to know one another.

You should understand that during this process, you are not always going to learn things about this person that are necessarily complimentary or pleasant.

If this other person is being honest with you, there will be moments when you are made aware of their flaws.

This kind of honesty is crucial when you are communicating with someone online.

You also have to exhibit this kind of honesty when you interact with this person online.

The reason why this kind of honesty is necessary from both parties is because being online can often make people pretend to be someone that they really aren’t.

Since they are behind a keyboard instead of facing you in person, they may be tempted to exaggerate about certain qualities that they may or may not have.

They may be tempted to present a personality that really isn’t who they are because they believe that doing this will impress you.

You may be tempted to do the same.

This is how an online relationship can become deceitful.

The frightful thing is that once either one of you or both of you start on this path, it is hard to stop.

One exaggeration or lie will give way to another and then another and then another.

Before you know it, you don’t know what is true or false anymore.

You are both believing in a lie.

Ultimately, it would be impossible to date this person in real life because you would be dealing with someone completely different from who they presented themselves to be online.

You are better off focusing on honesty and being true to yourself as you get to know this person online.

Try not to get carried away by what you are reading and in your hopes of finding a perfect relationship online.

Always have an understanding that this is still all happening online and thereby may not be entirely true.

Make it a point to meet this person in life as soon as you can in order to take the relationship from the online world into the real world.