Most of you know I am new to this online writing thing. Also that I am new to friendships formed with strangers across the globe, friendships I am struggling to understand because they feel real, they feel no different to 'physical friendships'.

Instead of meeting for a coffee and some conversation, we meet within my words or others' words and forge bonds, as we exchange pieces of selves and bits of our mutual lives. Opinions, thoughts, ideas, emotions and reflections draw us closer and closer, and the more this goes on, the more the feeling grows that we have someone, some few spread across the world who we can count on as being friends, supporting us, having our back.

Online friendships have become acceptable. No one questions their validity or genuineness or even the simple fact that they exist at all; given that in reality they are founded purely on 'anonymous' profiles and exchanged words. Sure, similar to real life, there can be just as much deception, turmoil and things going sideways... But there can also be as much sincerity, and trust and feelings of connectedness...

Among all this, we dream perhaps of one day meeting, seeing the 'person' in person, sharing that coffee in a bricks and mortar place instead of the virtual world we are accustomed to. But there is no real supposition that this will happen and no 'excruciating' need to make it happen. It just might, one day...

A few months ago, I watched a movie, 84 Charing Cross Road, released in 1987: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090570/

It is based on a memoir, through a compilation of letters between Helene Hanff and Frank Doel, dating from 1949 - 1968. I don't want to spoil it for those who have not seen it, but it has left some unanswered questions in my mind, and you know how fidgety and yes, 'waffly' I get when I launch myself into yet another search for answers.

Now this was pre-internet right? The only way people could communicate was through mail predominantly, and via phone - which considering the Trans-Atlantic nature of the setting of this film (post WWI USA and England) would have been both difficult and costly.

Since watching this film, I have deliberated. I have spent countless hours 'thinking'. I am trying hard to keep the plot and particularly the ending away from this writing, yet these are the two things which have kept me in a fidgety state. Or - using one of my favourite words, I am vexed!

So here's the one question I want to pose: Is it possible to love someone you have never met? If the assumption that deep and lasting friendships formed in this digital age are not only recognised but also an accepted part of this new culture, then can the same be said of love?

Can a friendship over time transform into a deeper, more emotional connection, and can this connection then be classified as love?

True, most friendships created online are between members of the same sex. When opposite sexes 'meet' virtually, there are issues to contend with and concerns to address: The marital status of both parties, the intent driving both parties and foremost, the lack of physical interplay.

In the 'real world' - say in a bar - you exchange looks and if there's a mutual 'spark' one or the other acts, and thus the 'relationship' is commenced. Supported by both words and physical encounters, shared times and common interests, it eventually expands and finally gets called 'love'... and all going to plan results in either moving in together or in matrimony. More often than not these days, it ends after a period of time; for any number of reasons we have discussed in my other works, communication (or the lack of it) featuring most prominently perhaps.

Now here's where my mind begins to wonder: If a man and a woman 'meet' some place in the virtual space we have created, and if one word leads to another, here too, a relationship begins to form. As entire 'volumes' of words are exchanged over time, this man and woman share an intellectual intimacy that is perhaps deeper than 'real life', for that is all they have?

There are no 'dates', no shared togetherness, no opportunities for any physical exchange. Yet this 'communication' via words, this dependence on the exchange of words - since it is the only means of sustaining the relationship - does it over time create a much deeper bond than its equal in the real world?

You often hear of 'life getting in the way' of love. Living together, perhaps marrying, having children... sometimes these serve to distance a couple, since there is less focus on communication via words and more focus on physical exchanges - be they sharing the rearing of children, social activities and mutual interests. The conversations become less personal and more to do with living day to day and discussing 'things' within those days.

Without repeating myself too much, I need to ask whether an online 'relationship' can in fact be 'deeper' than an offline one. How much time do typical couples spend talking to each other about each other offline? And by this I don't mean "How was your day?" or "What do you think about John and Mary getting it on?" or "We might have to push that vacation out since something's come up at work."

I mean time spent exploring each other's thoughts on any manner of subjects, discussing points of view, exchanging emotional reactions and delving deeper into each other's 'private selves'. Of course at the beginning of every offline relationship there is this period of exploration, as one seeks to 'know' the other and to better consider them as a potential 'mate'. But this period wanes over time, and a sense of comfort settles over the couple?

Not so online. Volumes of words continue to be written and exploration never really ceases as there is this sole dependency on words, and complacency cannot therefore ever sneak in. There is too, the fear of 'real life' others emerging and assuming greater importance, so the couple's focus is always on keeping this relationship fresh and 'interesting enough' to thwart any possible 'real' others.

Is this love though? Can love endure without physical intimacy? In bygone times, this concept was not something unusual. Circumstances sometimes kept those 'in love' apart, so letters were the sole means of communicating this love. So many books and poems and plays portray this non-physical intimacy between lovers - some of the grandest loves endured unconsummated... often for many decades.

I am genuinely perplexed, because if I am to believe in the legitimacy of online friendships, then I must also allow for the possibility of online love? Before the age of permissiveness came to being, and especially during the classical period, love was often portrayed as 'unrequited' or 'out of bounds' due to distance, social status and strict moral codes. It seems in this digital age, we are facing a similar scenario, where two people from opposite sides of the world, often residing in different cultures form bonds that can be equally unrequited and out of bounds?

There is a romance to this, an old-fashioned 'appeal', when compared to the brash, hurried and largerly scripted formula of modern offline 'romance' (or lack of romance) as evidenced by the growing need to consume 'romantic' stories and 'ChicLit', hungering for the more 'intense' and 'mysterious' elements missing in today's culture of easy sex and transient affairs.

Which then of course leads to the other supposition: Two meeting a bar and one or both are there - through any number of circumstances - without their partner/mate/ significant other/spouse. The spark thing happens, only they are not 'free' to pursue it further. There are two possible outcomes: Vows and promises are broken and relationships shattered (briefly or permanently), or 'sanity' prevails - whether due to a sense of righteousness, a deep and genuine affection, the fear of consequences or the consideration of children... and so the spark either ignites and becomes a raging all-consuming inferno, or it dies...

Online? Other issues come into play when one or both are otherwise 'taken'. Distance... The quandary of whether one is actually cheating if 'physical intercourse' has not taken place. Does intellectual intercourse (this being the now out-dated term for verbal communication) constitute deceit? The 'volumes' written in private and without the partner's knowledge, are they as harmful to a relationship/marriage as a 'physical affair'? Are they perhaps more harmful, because so much 'extra' has been exchanged than just a few sneaky sexual encounters in hotel rooms?    

Desire is present - no doubt about it - in every online 'love affair' - illicit or not. This desire intensifies over time, as the body becomes seduced by the ongoing provocative flirtatiousness expressed through words. In fact, the body remains in a constant state of desire and the lack of consummation serves to heighten the craving, keeping the couple suspended ever on the brink. It's like a much lengthier version of the moment before the first kiss in an offline relationship, the moment where everything changes as the first 'physicality' is exchanged.

This suspension really maybe the reason this online 'love' is persistent and sustained. And why there may be reluctance on one or both sides to meet in the real world. This is especially true if one has more to risk than the other in terms of being already 'commited' to another. Words are words. But the touch of a hand on another may well obliterate every single one written in those large volumes... Just like that.

But. Here's where I really lose the plot entirely: What if this online relationship - again, illicit or not - is the One? And what if two people miss out on the grandest of loves because 'real life' and logic/fear take precedence over these massive volumes of words? Would this then not constitute the greatest of tragedies? And what if they (one or both) finally garner this courage and take this 'leap of faith' I discussed in my other piece... only to find out it's too late? They got there too late?

So really, I am still questioning. An old brain grappling with a new reality linking to a much older one... Help me out here.

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Oh and there's something I've neglected for a long time - not neglected really, I actually had to ask how to do it yesterday that's how dumb I can sometimes be despite all this thinking/waffling!

So these are the people who have impacted my journey here, and people who rightly deserve a mention on every new bit of waffling I produce. Robert Alvarez especially, since he 'discovered' me and has been my mentor ever since, mostly cracking the whip but sometimes giving me that much needed pat on the back:

TheAlvarezChronicles

rosaimee

bayaBLUE

Klaius

seechelle

There are more, many more of you and I will be adding those of you I have left out on other pieces. Now that I have conquered this bit of know-how!