I originally posted this back in May but I was speaking with a friend recently and felt like I needed to re-post this.

With the popularity of the internet and all of these various networking/social/dating sites it is no surprise that many people today are beginning to find potential love interests on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. I was talking to one of my good friends recently and he was telling me that the last 5 women that he has dealt with he met on Twitter.

Usually I would think that people are crazy for dealing with someone they meet off of the internet but he managed to meet someone, fall in love, and even thought about having a real future with this woman. Well, that is until she dumped him. One minute he was planning his future with her and the next he was licking his war wounds from loving someone who he thought felt the same way.

I only know his side of the story therefore I can’t comment objectively as to why it didn’t work. However, what is clear is that he thought he it would last forever and she just wasn’t ready to give him forever. Either that or she just played him from the very beginning making him think that she cared for him when in reality she didn’t. Whatever the truth in that situation is, is yet to be discovered but it did get me to thinking about dating, relationships and love in this new dating era. How do you really know that something’s real if it starts off of in the most unreal of all places, the internet?

I have a Twitter page so I see what goes on there on a daily basis. Some people use Twitter as a promotional tool for their music, blogs, business, etc. But I’ve also seen others use it as a way to “hook” up with people. I see the endless flirting going back and forth between followers. Sometimes it may be harmless flirting but sometimes it’s not. When it’s not harmless and truly is intentional that is where the “fake reality” begins.

I say fake reality because in cyberspace you can be who or whatever you want to be. You can portray yourself as being something that you’re not and can begin promising things that you can’t or have no intentions on ever delivering and someone eventually ends up getting hurt. One begins to fall for the person on their Blackberryor computer screen and then when having to deal with the person on a more personal intimate level they may find that the person is nothing like they thought they were. By this time, it may be too late because they may have developed feelings for the person.

For example, when my friend was dating his twitter love he thought she was the love of his life, the future mother of his kids, his best friend all because he never really knew who she was. He told me the other day that he feels like he never really knew her. That is a very relatable statement. Sometimes we can be with someone for years and never really know them. Therefore, how can we expect to really know someone that we meet on the internet when the only real interaction we’ve had is via a computer screen?

Recently I was talking to another friend who met a guy on Twitter and their romance according to her was a very unlikely one because neither one of them were really interested in the other in a romantic way. She describes the relationship as going from 0 to 60 in less than a second and she can’t recall how it happened. One minute they were tweeting/bbm’ing about music and the next they were talking about how much they missed each other and the next he was deleting her from his BBM contacts. They met, got together, and broke up in less than 3 weeks, according to her.

Eventually they got back together, but now my friend is proceeding with caution as they continue to try and build a relationship and I don’t blame her. There was obviously a problem with communication going on. Individuals don’t realize that talking is a very vital part of any healthy and successful relationship.

My friend has known her “twitter love” since March and when she met him he was involved with someone else who he cared deeply for. I told her to just be careful and not to invest more than she is willing to lose. I’ve seen way too many people get hurt because of investing too much too soon. Sometimes you have to be stingy with your love, let them earn it.  Don’t just give it away.

As I listen to these Twitter love stories I have to laugh because I can’t believe that this is the state of dating today. It’s funny to me that the way you break up with someone now is by deleting them from your BBM or defriending them on Facebook. Forget about actually talking things out. The concept of talking is becoming obsolete. People don’t talk anymore and they need to.

Today, instead of meeting someone exchanging numbers and actually talking to get to know each other we’re exchanging Twitter @ names, bbm pins and saying “hit me up on twitter or bbm”. How much can you really learn about someone from random tweets on twitter? Maybe I’m just a pessimist when it comes to finding love this way or maybe I’m just old fashioned and don’t believe that you can find true love when there is a computer/blackberry/iphone between you and the other person.

What do you guys think, is love only one tweet away?