If it's not love then what is it?

I have a friend who met someone via a dating site. She's filipina and the guy is caucasian. An american from Los Angeles. They "fell in love" online. The guy visited her here. They got engaged. My friend visited him there. She never came back. They got married. Civilly. His promise that they will get married in Boracay never came true. His promise that they will start a family never came true. His promise to buy a house for them never came true. He had a vasectomy without telling her. She only found out about it because his doctor called to remind him of his follow-up check-up or something. The guy also admitted that he has fallen out of love with her but that he will not be the one to file a divorce. He was divorced once before and has a daughter from that relationship. I think he doesn't want to have to pay my friend alimony. He also admitted that 6 months into their marriage, he had an affair with another woman. Oh, did I tell you that she worked as her husband's bookkeeper "for free" the whole time they were together? He never paid her. She said she was doing it all for love. Yeah right. Good thing they're now separated. I wish they'd get a divorce. But that's a decision that my friend will have to make for herself. Aaaarggh! Just thinking about it makes my blood boil.

I can tell you from experience, there is a very good chance that it is love. That is essentially how my relationship started. Me and my wife met online and it started out as just talking becoming friends. Then we were online talking as much as we could. Eventually one day she started telling me about herself stuff that she never told anyone else and me telling her the same thing. We totally opened up to each other and we realized we loved each other. It took almost two years with one visit during Dinagyang here in Iloilo in between those two years before we actually saw each other in person. Now that I am out of the military I have moved here and we are the happiest we have ever been. Sure we have arguments and things like that but I would be more worried if we didn't. So yes It is very much love in my case and I have faith that it would be in the case you mention as well.

It could be love but passive love maybe because you haven't yet taken it to the next level that is to meet each other in real life. Love might not have any boundaries or distance but it also makes you cross the boundaries and cover the distances. Falling in love on internet is quite easy and common because it has this romantic feeling about it and actually we all can very easily try our hands at it as we got so many options. Most of the time, you just see what you want to see in the other person, also on internet it's totally in our hand that how we present ourselves to the other person which of course may not be always what we are like in real world. Perhaps, it's just strong attraction which is fueled by the distances between them and being termed as "love" or let's hope it's indeed love!

i'd love to give you a really indepth and insightful comment to this discussion, intermingled with some dry witty comments.. but i have absoloutly no idea what you are talking about lol!

I think it is not love but rather a close friendship. I think the vacant place for a friend is being filled here. Before deciding their future, they should think about all pros and cons as these days we hear more about being cheated in person knowing well each other then how do we take the net love a 100%?

I think it is love! love knows no boundaries as everybody says. Even you are far away from each other it is not impossible to fall in love when someone show some care,sweet words and incomparable love to you. Love and be love.

Toni! It is a complex situation to 'understand' for people like us.. Only those two who are involved in it could understand it. To my mind on line love affairs could be tricky and dicey because when they would see other in person, they may experience different feelings for each other. Face to face interaction is very much different from on line interaction and even if you speak on phone or through internet, you cannot read/see gestures etc. on other person's face.

For me I think its love even if he doesn't admit it but if it's not love maybe they are just enjoying each others company. Maybe the girl was sweet to him in their chat online or maybe the girl is just charming that he is just affectionate of her.

It could be love. I think you need to meet someone in person to actually know if you feel a physical attraction to them, but I think you can love someone without actually meeting them but not entirely in a romantic way, but I think for the most part you can be romantic. But you have to meet to see if the physical attraction is still there to know if it is absolute love or not, but I do believe you can love someone you have never met, just not quite fully, but pretty darn close.

I'm not sure if that's love. Maybe they're lonely, found someone with similar interests, and are curious to find out more about them? There are many things that can be mistaken for love, and this may just be one of those cases. But, then again, it's possible that it's love. Many people believe that love is something "predestined", and once you meet that person (and it doesn't even have to be face to face), you instantly know that they're the one. I've never actually met anyone to whom this has happened before, so I'm a little skeptical...but my mind's still open :) Maybe this is one of life's eternal mysteries...

For me that's not love Toni. It's just a mutual attraction, borne out of their being in communication at each other always. They both fill what they might be lacking in life, someone who have the time to be with him/her.

It's almost love I guess. It's just that they are too far with each other and we don't know yet if the feelings that they have right now will still be the same when they will stay together. All I know this always happen for someone who married a foreigner. First, they do chatting and fall in love with each other. Later the foreigner came and married the woman. Results? Some are happy and some are not. It depends of the love that bound to both of them. Happy mylotting!

For me, it is indeed love. Everything can happen when it comes to love. I have a friend in the same situation. They only see each other through yahoo messenger and most of the time, they are talking in the morning the very moment they wake up and before they go to sleep at night.for some who didn't experience long distance relationship, we may think that it is crazy. Loving someone who is miles apart. For me it's love.:-P

In today's generation it's a attraction. They think that they love each other but it's not.

It's infatuation. They don't know eachother in person. Who know what the person's really thinking? If it has been under 4 months it's the honeymoon period. We'll see what happens as the relationship goes on or if the two ever meet. I'm not saying that it is not love, maybe they really are. But I don't think this is very likely. BTW is this about you?

Hi toni Well, this is what I would call - Attraction that togetherness brings. I cannot say that this is love or not because love's definition varies from person to person. It can also be infatuation as some mentioed above, but I think it is more about the distance and the togetherness if not anything else. On skype, or cases where people dont meet in real, they get attracted towards one another because they are distant. They always portray the unreal (virtual side) of theirs which might always seem positive and atrractive. Things might not be the same when the real people meet.

It sounds like love to me. Though they are from two different worlds, as the old saying says sometimes opposite attract. Apparently they do care very deeply as they would not be spending so much time talking to one another and thinking of the other when they first wake up.

i think it is just the adrenaline of being in love but not really love. my definition of love is when you know the faults and bad attitudes of the person and you can still see the kind person within and you can accept the real him. i dont think so that a lot of time chatting and skyping can really see the person. it is only if you have been with him personally that you can really learn a lot from him.

hehehehe for me i guess that is just needs.. looking some comfort and understandings... You can only tell if its love probably seeing that in person.

If it's not love maybe it's affection and it's hard to control it. Love can be acquired unexpectedly and love bears baby.