Romance in Cyberspace: Understanding Online Attraction

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Abstract
While many people think that electronic relating promotes emotionally disconnected or superficially erotic contacts, the structure and process of online relating can facilitate positive interpersonal connections, including the healthy development of romantic relationships. Computer mediated relating (CMR) reduces the role that physical attributes play in the development of attraction, and enhances other factors such as propinquity, rapport, similarity, and mutual self-disclosure, thus promoting erotic connections that stem from emotional intimacy rather than lustful attraction. The Net is a model of intimate yet separate relating. It allows adult (and teen) men and women more freedom to deviate from typically constraining gender roles that are often automatically activated in face-to-face interactions. Online relating can lead to destructive results when people act on or compulsively overindulge in a speeded up, eroticized pseudo-intimacy. Clinicians can help their clients make positive use of online relating to improve social skills and confidence and to facilitate the exploration and integration of split-off parts of the personality.