I recently had a weird experience with a guy. We had initially met a couple of years or so back – of course, online. He was from the same professional background as mine and things looked promising. After exchanging a few e-mails, within a few days a few days of ‘meeting each other’, we expressed desire to meet each other. He lived in a city which is relatively close to Mumbai.
We had planned that he would give me a visit first. That didn’t happen quite as planned and we eventually stopped communicating with each other. One of the reasons why he stopped was because I was in an open relationship with Vinokur then, whereas he wanted a monogamous relationship.
A couple or so months back, he sent me an e-mail to which I responded. We again started communicating with each other rather intensely. This time, however, I made plans to visit him. We took our relationship to the next level by starting phone conversations. Things went smoothly and I booked train tickets to visit and spend a weekend with him.
Everything was going well and to make sure that we ‘knew’ each other well, I decided to have a web cam chat conversation with him. It was the first time that we were seeing each other live on camera. I thought it went well – at least I ‘liked’ him. But the experience was certainly not pleasant for him, as it turned out.
After a day of strange incommunicado vis-a-vis my SMSes and phone calls, I got a message which said – ‘Kris, I’m sorry but I don’t think that we are physically compatible. Please refund your tickets.’ It obviously came as a shock to me. I replied thanking him for being honest. But still, I felt bad for being rejected for my appearance. I started wondering if my abundant facial hair had destroyed a blooming relationship. Believe me folks, that’s how you start thinking when your self-esteem is low.
To cope with it, my friend gave me this advice – maybe it’s that he found me too good looking for him and couldn’t quite take the enormity of the package that I had presented. That’s a nice and pleasant way to look at it. Yes, it does help me think that way. It also helps to remember how many people love you for what you are and what you look like.
But there is another message in this. Relationships are always initiated on the basis of physical attraction and compatibility. This step is circumnavigated in the online dating process. When you are getting intimate with anyone online, make sure that you do that after confirming your physical attraction/compatibility toward the other (and vice versa) by exchanging pictures/indulging in voice chat. Don’t forget this step before you decide to meet up!