Internet Dating: Should I Visit Him First?

Dear Agatha,

There is this guy I met on the internet. We have been dating for four months now and we are already talking about marriage. Recently we agreed on the need for us to meet. He has twice failed to make it on account of him not having enough money to make the trip.

Again we have planned for him to come. What I want to know is whether you think it wise for him to come or for me to visit him instead?

Confused Lady.

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Dear Confused Lady,

What do you have against him coming to see you? That is the ideal. He is the man while you are the woman. Besides you are safer in the familiar terrain of your own home and environment because you still can’t make a very categorical statement about him.

Beyond the knowledge you have of him from the bits he has told you through your internet conversation, what else do you know about him to warrant you going to his house or contemplate marriage with him for that matter?

The internet is an impersonal base, where all sorts of information, are traded freely. Since this concerns you and your life, you must take extra precaution to investigate what is true about him or not.

Coming to your place offers you an advantage to observe him unnoticed, to deliberately test him on areas you desire as well as ask probing questions on issues you have discussed before just to authenticate all he has told you before.

You won’t be able to do this in a strange environment such as his place because while you are still trying to adjust to the strangeness of his place, he will manipulate you to give out information both in words and actions concerning your inner thoughts without you noticing.

Another advantage, it gives you the chance to get a preview into his real disposition towards you from what he discusses with you on the first day of your meeting.

However, there is the need for you too to be focused about the real issues in life. Meeting a man on the internet and discussing marriage with him within four months doesn’t cut you out as a woman who has a clear vision of what she wants from life or has an idea of what marriage is all about.

There is more than the issues you are currently playing up because from all indications, this man is a total stranger to you irrespective of whatever information you have both exchanged on the internet. You both need time to blend and distill every information you have exchanged through your meetings physically. For all you know, you may both not even like each other’s personality or way of thinking.

There is a huge difference between abstract communication and physical communication. And when it comes to marriage, a very physical thing, you need more than internet abstracts to make it work.

What the internet has simply done for both of you is to bring you together; given you the chance to talk about yourselves; what these physical meetings would do is to cement what the internet started. The quality of cement and bonding would depend on your joint abilities to drag the relationship forward.

For a relationship to grow, it must have a lot of friendship to survive. This is what you both must look for, not some fantasies about marriage being the ultimate thing between the two of you.

This is because the success or otherwise of a relationship or marriage is dependent on the quality of friendship a couple introduce into it. You need physical interactions to be friends, to be able to laugh at each other as well as with each other. You need it to create your fun, your soft zones, exchange ideas as well as put your different temperaments to test.

As for him not having money to come on the previous times you both arranged for him to come, such stories and situation are part of growing a relationship. Everything in life goes up and down. There is always time of plenty and time of drought.

This is something you must get used to if you are planning marriage. On those occasions he doesn’t have, your duty in his life is to give. It isn’t the duty of the man alone to maintain the home; it is the joint responsibility of both partners.

Your meeting will enable you work out the fine details of the pattern of your marriage something internet or telephone conversation cannot do effectively.

Therefore allow him come to you because you are the woman and he is the man. Thereafter, you too can visit him at home.

While you await his visit, go to God in prayers to point you at the hidden things about his person.

Good luck.