Mistake #4:

Too Good To Be True

The verbal, text-based Internet world creates many gaps in communication. Communication is 93 percent nonverbal. In the absence of nonverbal information such as the tone of one's voice or facial expressions, people can easily be mislead into thinking that what they read is a real representation of the person writing it. 

People are left to fill in the gaps with their own imagination. People who dream of finding true love may imagine their online partner to be a perfect match or soulmate solely on the basis of what they read and how they interpret it. When people feel lonely, they are more likely to let their imaginations run wild.

"But our love seemed so real!"

"We seemed so perfectly matched!"

"I thought I found Mr. Right!"

So goes the lament of many an online user trying to make sense out of a disappointing and sometimes emotionally damaging experience with online relationships that seemed "totally real and genuine" before they ended.

"What went wrong with Mr. or Ms. Right? Was it me or was it them?"

Chances are, it was both. Their unmet needs gave rise to intense feelings that resembled "falling in love" when they found someone who could meets their needs. The more needs someone met, the greater the attraction to them. 

People typically mislabel the intense feelings they have for another person as "falling in love" because they may never have had them before or because that is how they (or other people) interpret them.

For example, a person can evoke intense feelings in another when they satisfy (however temporary) a long-standing need for nurturing, affection, approval, or acceptance. The greater the level of need, the greater the feeling evoked. 

A nurturing person who shows affection, approval, and acceptance of another is expressing a form of love for that person. However, it is not "true love," or more specifically, romantic or erotic love. 

It is the kind of unconditional love that a parent would show a child or a brother would show a sister. Problems occur when people have these needs in addition to others such as the need for physical closeness and sexual intimacy. Sometimes, their need for nurturing, affection, approval, or acceptance can only come out in a sexual relationship. When it does, it is often hard for people to know the difference between "love" and "lust."

The #4 Mistake of the Internet is when people fail to see how their unmet needs can affect both their feelings and their perception of the other person as well as to confuse which needs are being met by that person.