Exhibitionism
“Online, people tend to fairly immediately translate their feelings into words or photographs and start living out their daydreams. There’s an impulsivity and exhibitionism about pressing ‘send’ and acting as if the social media is private space,” says Ancer.
Within a few message and photo exchanges people feel close to each other. A result is that there is plenty of boundary dissolving or apparent boundary dissolving because it is at a distance.
“Freud in his time wrote about repression as a major pathology in people’s expression of their sense of self and their relationships,” says Ancer. “The internet breaks through this and is a giant step along the timeline of self-expression and relationships, which includes the sexual revolution and democracy.
“Many people today do and say what they like, with too little shame and perhaps too little sense of consequence, whereas in the past there was too much shame and too much sense of consequence.”
Online affairs are a case in point, and can become very erotic. This can ramp up people’s dissatisfaction with their real life and their real relationship, which cannot match up to its remote counterpart.
Ancer cites a case where high school sweethearts meet up again on Facebook after not having seen each other for some time. They both have created their own lives, but suddenly they can be their 17year-old selves again and relive their unresolved fantasy of how life could have turned out.
“The intensity and idealisation of the online relationship takes energy out of the relationship you are supposed to be in,” says Ancer.
When people who are in marriages or relationships get involved online it is often evidence of dissatisfaction with themselves, says Joburgbased emotional coach and author Stephanie Vermeulen.
“They believe the person with whom they have reconnected or whom they have just met will solve all their problems and make life interesting and exciting. They also believe their online romance is the answer to all the problems in their ‘real life’ relationship. There may well be problems in the real life relationship and the online relationship can end up weakening it further.”
Or, as some people who have chosen to meet their online love face to face have discovered, the person is very different face to face, sometimes in a positive way, sometimes not. Seeing a person’s reaction to you face to face is very different to receiving a response from them online. Meeting a person in the flesh is very different to meeting them online. Many people find the chemistry they thought they shared just isn’t there.
“The fantasy of being in love is far more powerful than actually knowing a person,” says Vermeulen. “If you are communicating with someone via Facebook, or online dating or Smsing them, you fall in love with your own fantasy of who this person is and what they are going to be in your life. A common fantasy is about how much the person adores you and will fulfil all your dreams and complete you. Online there is so much potential to fuel the fantasy because you are not party to their bad habits or bad behaviour, and they are naturally putting their best online foot forward.”
The problems with this, says Vermeulen, is that the fantasy diverts you from looking at your own life and from fulfilling yourself.
Vermeulen recounts a case where two people were Skyping. The man lives in the US and the woman in Joburg. “They Skyped for several months and the woman kept telling me how wonderful and attentive he was – until they met. Within a few days the romance was over because the woman discovered how selfish he was in real life. She said that he was solely interested in his needs and that he spent the whole time talking about himself.
“People can be intensely focused on you for the couple of minutes or the hour when they are communicating with you online,” says Vermeulen.
“This gives the impression of undivided attention and caring. It also gives the impression that you know this person well because you have shared so closely and so frequently online.”
Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.
Vermeulen speaks of two other people, both of whom are divorced, who met online and who have subsequently met several times face to face. A year down the line the relationship is looking really promising, but they live on different continents and will need to face the “who moves where” down the line.
Clinical psychologist Pierre Brouard from the Centre for the Study of Aids at the University of Pretoria, says the ability to meet people from all over the world as a result of social media has its obvious dangers, but it is also a very positive and interesting vehicle for social engagement. As is its role in helping couples stay connected when they live apart because of work or if one or both of them frequently travels.
“It’s tempting to get into a