The New York Times – Sunday Review – By DANIEL JONES – Published: February. 6, 2014
In Romance at Arm’s Length, columnist Daniel Jones, who has been tracking and commenting on love longings and various forms of connection for the NYT for the last ten years, teases out the wave of interest in online romance and its often ill-fated endings. The fact is, real life, face-to-face relationships are messy. They expose us to the risk…necessity…that our vulnerabilities will be exposed. Likewise, we must find ourselves faced with those of that other person in the room. Both participants, the loved and the lover, can be fluidly engulfed in the magic of who they long to be and what wondrous qualities each projects into each other. We’re not talking about deceit. Honest, well-intended online love can be powerful and rich. The magical early stages of most love begin in that sea of feel-good possibilities. But in the online forum, the ‘love’ can linger so much longer and morph into a muse fundamentally detached from reality. The Internet can be a great resource for meeting new people, but it’s probably wise, and will eventually pay off abundantly, to brace up for tackling the three-dimensionality of a real, face-to-face lover.