Chinese Online Dating: Are You an I-Love-You Junkie?

Do you have the tendency to fall in love too fast and too soon?  Do you always find yourself wanting to say or actually saying "I love you" after only a few weeks or months of Chinese online dating and even before meeting the other in person? 

You may be an I-love-you junkie. 

A strong attraction and connection developed online are, of course, a great foundation for any solid relationship.  Dating online allows people to meet and get to know others who are also looking for love, to find potential partners with whom they have a lot of similarities and who they find desirable on different levels.       

With online Chinese dating, especially, one must always remember that an attraction developed online does not automatically guarantee that the attraction will be as strong or the same in the real world; and an attraction, no matter how strong, is not the same as love.  And saying "I love you" to a person one has only been communicating with online for a few weeks or many months should not be done lightly. 

When a person has not had the chance to get to know the person in the real world yet, put their online attraction/connection to the tests that only a real-world setting can bring, and determined if they really are right for each other, saying "I love you" would be premature.  What will happen when they finally meet for the first time and the one who said those words realizes that they are not right for each other? 

One must always consider the possibility, no matter how small, that the online relationship, no matter how strong it may seem, may not survive the real world because the spark fizzled.  One must also consider how saying "I love you" prematurely might affect the recipient if it turns out later on that saying it was a mistake.

It often happens that a person sincerely means what he says while he says it, only to realize later on that he got carried away by his feelings at that time and when those feelings went away, so did the original and genuine intentions of his words.  This is exactly what happens when people say things out of anger; this is also the reason why a lot of promises get broken.  And saying "I love you" is one of the biggest promises one can make to another.

Internet dating with Chinese (especially those in Mainland China) certainly has its limitations; at the same time, it can also create an atmosphere of hopefulness and endless possibilities.  It can bring a sort of "fairy tale" quality of romance to a relationship.  Of course, fairy tales are supposed to end in happy endings. 

One must not forget, however, that even the happiest fairy tale love stories go through many trials before the love is proven strong and true.  Yes, being in an online relationship, especially a cross-cultural and long-distance one, is already a test in itself.  Being in an online relationship with a person from a different culture and in a different country brings with it a lot of challenges.  If two people remain strong together despite these challenges, then they have definitely built a solid foundation for a more long-term relationship; but is their supposed love strong enough to survive the tests of being together in the real world?

In many cases, saying "I love you" can and should wait until two people have gotten the chance to meet in person and spend adequate time together.  After all, if one is certain that it is real love that he/she feels, then it is all the more reason for him/her to see his/her love as soon as possible.  And then the question of whether the love is real can be conclusively answered.      

Being hopeful is a great thing to have when one is searching for his/her life partner through a dating a website; being (too) hopeful can also be a not-so-good thing if it gives one the tendency to mistake a strong feeling or attraction as real love. 

Being too hopeful can make one believe he/she is feeling real love even when he/she has not even met the other in person yet and spent time with them in the real world.  Perhaps this is because he/she is desperate to find love right away; perhaps the person is just eternally optimistic.  Whatever the case may be, getting to know somebody more in the real-world setting is a critical stage before one can be certain if he/she has finally found "The One" and before a person can truly say the words "I love you."

Discover tons of great information about Chinese online dating and cross-cultural relationships on the blogs, magazine and forum of ChinaLoveMatch.net (the home of trusted Chinese dating), where international men and Chinese women share their life experiences and bare their souls to give you the real goods on all things Chinese.