Internet Affairs

Dr. Roher Psychotherapy – Blog

Internet affairs have become a new way of reaching out to people outside one’s marriage for companionship, love and sex. In this article we discuss the differences between these affairs and real time affairs.

Internet infidelity is an issue of endemic proportions not only for the sheer number of people involved in them, but also because of the endless possibilities at one’s fingertips that cyberspace contacts offer.

I see the following as some of the main differences between cyberspace and real time affairs:

Anonymity. This encourages people to share more personal and intimate parts of themselves; to verbalize fantasies and wishes that might be more difficult to discuss with someone in real time, and to be bolder and more experimental with specific desires and interests.

Containment. Lack of physical and sexual contact online makes people feel less at risk of exposure. They don’t have to be afraid to be seen; they don’t have to worry about explaining to a partner where they spent the last few hours, or where they have been, and they don’t have to worry about safe sex. This feeling of safety is illusory and misplaced, however. 50% of people who meet on line progress to communicating with one another over the phone, and 31% end up having sex with one another at some point in the course of their relationship. Other people, however, prefer to maintain a virtual-only relationship, and resist meeting and getting to know each other in real life.

More room for fantasizing. Because the person at the other end of the screen is not a person in flesh and bones, she or can easily become an image onto whom all kinds of fantasies can be projected.
Unlimited pool from which to choose the person who meets one’s fancy and desires. This almost unlimited pool is available twenty four seven, across the globe.

Dissociation from reality. This element contributes to secrecy, compartmentalization and denial. All affairs, including those in real time, are kept somehow dissociated from reality. However, online affairs are even more so. A large proportion of people who engage in Internet infidelity do not even believe they are having affairs. This belief reduces their guilt and responsibility about what they are doing, and discourages them from stopping these behaviors.

Easier to begin intimate relationships. Fears of being rejected, of being inadequate, unattractive and socially awkward are greatly reduced in online affairs, due to the lack of physical contact, at least at the beginning.

Relationships become intimate much faster than real time ones, due to lowered inhibitions and ease of communication by text only, rather than face-to-face interactions.

Easier to end relationships, without awkward explanations, guilt and repercussions. The concept of “de-friendling” used in some social networks is an example of the ease with which people on line end relationships.

Because of all these characteristics, online affairs paradoxically tend to be deeper and more intimate and at the same time more superficial than real life ones. In internet intimate relationships, the sense of time is skewed; the normal progression from superficial to more intimate knowledge of each other is different, as couples can become very intimate right away, while in other areas they may continue to be total strangers to one another.

The biggest danger of online affairs is the illusion that what is happening is real, when in fact it is walled off from reality, and totally dissociated from it. These walled off experiences represent an altered reality that is often maintained isolated, unintegrated from the rest of one’s life and secret. Its presence prevents people involved in it to deal with the problems they face in real time relationships. Instead of addressing real life challenges, people retreat in opportunities and fantasies provided by access to the internet, maintaining two realities that don’t communicate nor interact with one another.