(Note: The reader below refers to a dominate/submissive relationship, also known as sadomasochism/S&M. This usually involves consensual, sexual role-playing where one person is dominant and another submissive.)
Barbara’s Question:
Hi Liam,
I like your no-nonsense advice, and I’m hoping that you have some for me. I’m 56, and find myself in the frustrating position of having been “in love” with a long distance chat buddy for the last ten years (four of which I’ve been widowed). This is a dominant/submissive relationship. I’ve seen that you understand the degree of strength that it takes for a submissive to submit. You won’t be surprised that a great deal of what attracts me to this man is an iron will to match my own, along with mirroring intelligence, playfulness, wit, independence, ethics, and good taste. In many ways he seems perfect, and the ways in which I know he’s not don’t concern me.
This man and I have witnessed each other’s lives, and are good friends and confidants on top of having mutual kinks and an attraction and mental connection that both freely acknowledge. We touch each other with words in complex ways that others have never accomplished. We each remember and think about things that the other said years ago. And familiarity allows us to trust and continue to open our discussions to deeper shadow secrets – which, surprisingly, always mesh as well as the particulars of our initial attraction.
Both of us are damaged, and we understand in what ways. So I’ve been very patient with him. He’s extremely self-protective, however, perhaps pathologically so, and has thus far refused to meet me in real life. My friends think I’m nuts to wait for him to come around. I think he’s well worth it. One friend has been urging me to just show up and take him in hand. Although it’s an amusing scenario, I know he’s shy and I think that he’d see it as stalking and that it would violate the trust that he’s developed in me. Submission has to be his choice as well. I’m wondering if a real life relationship with me is a choice that he’ll ever make, and one that I should press for. He’s been patient with me in many ways, too, and has helped me grow on so many levels. I’d hate to lose him as a friend, and will probably continue to talk to him no matter what. If there’s a real possibility of winning him, though, I feel that I need the aid of a strategist with a clear understanding. You strike me as a person who is on his level in that regard, so I would appreciate any insight or advice that you can give me.
Psychic Liam ext. 9290’s Response:
Thank you, Barbara, for bringing me such a thought-provoking scenario. You are indeed fortunate to have found so compatible a partner in your sensual pursuits… A fellow roamer of the shadow realm; watching you as you watch him. Such a romance is very powerful. It is also very delicate, and easily misunderstood. When two people come together, energy is exchanged, and a third entity is born. An identity housed in abstract and subtle form. Such entities demand nourishment. They are subject to evolution and growth, dwindling and destruction. Your relationship is a fascinating subject… one that requires substantial alteration to the germane perception of human interaction, and perhaps even the very concept of reality itself.
First of all, we have to question what constitutes a “real” person. Like anything else in this universe, a so-called real person is essentially a presentation of data which our senses perceive and our brain deciphers, decodes and interprets. The outcome of all this is always unique. No two people ever encounter the same person. Of course, arguments over this already complex philosophical concept have extended themselves in recent years to the encounters people are having in cyberspace, and with artificial intelligence. In your case, you have been exploring the limitless creative sexual expression of a very potent cyber interaction. Such interactions are every bit as valid as any interaction you might have in real life… But understand that the creative vibration that flourishes in cyber land is dependent on a very selective presentation. We do this in real life as well, of course, constantly sifting through our personal data and deciding what to present in order to achieve a desired effect. But this selection process is more pronounced in cyberspace. Thus a cyber personality may be quite separate and distinct from its physical personality, and there isn’t always effective transfer potential. Our limited perceptions cause physical reality to be more constrained. It’s more rigid. In cyber reality, you and this man are perfectly matched, even in your imperfections. But you must understand the entities you are to each other there, and the relationship you’ve created, would warp considerably if translated into a physical form. In looking at the situation, I see that the two of you have enormous intellectual capacity to continue with this grand experiment of pleasure in alternative realities for years to come, and I fear you are teetering on the edge of destroying something quite beautiful and amazing for the sake of convention. Your friends may see your devotion as mad, because they think a cyber relationship isn’t “real,” when actually your willingness to tread the darkness together makes your relationship far more real than anything your friends will ever know. Please don’t try to stuff it in some confining little box.
It seems to me that your partner understands things a bit better than you. He knows very well that if you met in person, dated, even made love… you would lose it all. In those ordinary motions, the magic of the other universe would be sacrificed, and the desire you share would die. He has no wish to lose something so precious. And neither do you, really. I feel you’re happy as things are. It’s influences outside yourself and your need to conform to them that pushes you to risk what is so incredible. You are so much more than the physical shell you inhabit. We all are. We are infinite. Don’t put limits on what can be. Keep exploring, keep expanding… add a third party or more to your private world for your mutual enjoyment, and take them on the journey as well. It sounds like a lot more fun than sitting around listening to your friends and their empty words of advice.
7 thoughts on “Lessons in Online Love”
every persons in this world are of different nature and different perception and their needs, wants are also different so it becomes very difficult to understand a person online. the above blog is well posted and help those who are seriously indulge in online dating.
Dear Liam,
Thank you SO MUCH for answering this for me. You see clearly, and your advice is spot on, as always. I wouldn’t give this man up for the world, and am grateful to know that I might have, by insisting on following a path that doesn’t belong to him and I. Wanting the highest reflection of myself that I can find is my way, and in what I’ve experienced in real life D/s as a world of common houseboys, he stands out as an extremely rare and worthy man with a gifted mind. Wanting more of him is as natural for me as having him, yet I needed to understand that the ways in which we do have each other are more precious than a common life can never equal, and you were able to show me that.
The one thing that people who get to know me well always end up saying to me is: ‘You make me think differently about things’. Changing my thinking has never been so easy a task for another, and I’ve seldom found anyone to whom I could say the same, yet he’s one, and you’re another. You have my eternal gratitude.
Many Blessings to you.
Barbara
Hail and Well Met, Liam,
Your advice was excellent…….
…Everybodys’ needs are different.
Personally speaking , I could have a cyber-relationship and leave it at that. I have no desire , time, or need for an actual relationship. So, it works for me and my lifestyle. ( And I like the mystery and romance of a cyber relationship……the love letters…the poems….etc).
Different strokes for different folks….
I never listen to what friends and family say about my personal love life…..they are NOT me….and funny thing……I’m happy and it seems that while they so freely wish to bend my ear and give out well-meaning advice…..that they are not so happy with their own lives.
Blessed Be )O(
Gina Rose ext.9500
Hi Liam, I’ve been reading you for quite a while, and do admire your well-focused insights, intuitions, and knowledge of life.
I’ve had two LD cybersphere relationships. One lasted almost four years. It resembled Barbara’s in many ways. The next one … within in a week we knew we would meet each other. And, despite the considerable physical distance between us and the financial expense involved in getting from here to there, within 3 months we did meet. And the third entity was born, and thrives.
In understanding the difference between the two, I see that in the first relationship we indeed did explore the limitless creative spiritual/mental/emotional/sexual expression of a very potent cyber interaction, for four years. We certainly exchanged energy, shared a palpable energetic bond. Unlike Barbara’s example, we visioned our meeting. Each of us had entangled energy to untangle. She, bless her, helped me in my untangling. She talked about untangling herself, yet, after a while it became clear to me that she enjoyed her entanglement, and enjoyed recounting it to me, and that was all to the cyber-relationship.
In the second instance, the cyber-connection was so riveting, so visceral, and immediately so. I cast her natal chart, and then put hers and mine together, and in 40 years of being a natal astrologer and preparing hundreds of couple charts, I’d never seen a chart like ours with twelve aspects which can only described as “off-chart” excellent for a couple. Two, three, four such aspects would smile upon any pairing, but twelve? Imagine my own shock as I prepared our chart.
In this Age of cyber-possibilities, stories like mine and Barbara’s will become increasingly common. I do agree Liam, we have to question what constitutes a “real” person. It’s funny, but in the first relationship, friends told me, like Barbara’s friends, that the relationship wasn’t “real.” In the second relationship friends told me I was dealing with the “unreal” again.
Well, my friends were 50 percent correct.
Barbara, I agree with Liam. You’ve had this relationship for ten years. You could continue indefinitely. So, the question for you: Is this what you want? The answer in my case was, “No.” In my first relationship, the spiritual, mental, emotional cyber-relationship delighted both of us, and for quite a while. In my present relationship, the spiritual, mental, and emotional connections richly express themselves, too, and have deepened with time passing.
But, for some of us anyway, feeling a lover’s breath, inhaling a lover’s scent, writing and playing symphonies together … that’s the icing on the cake. Ever since my childhood, I’ve loved icing.
I had a 3 yr long online D/s relationship that totally got destroyed when we tried to mix the fantasy with real life. I wish I had access to Liam back when I struggled over the decision to take it to real life. :/ After 2 very long & excruciating years, my Domme & I are now friends again. None of my friends ever “got” it…the relationship she & I had. They still don’t. So if you make that choice to merge the 2, make sure that it is what the 2 of you want…not because it’s the “normal” thing to do…I doubt I’ll ever recover from the pain of losing what we had…
some of my best friends are phone friends. it is a limitless experience. i know the people but for several years have just been speaking on the phone.it is wonderful to connect on such a high spiritual level…and of course to avoid the pitfalls of third dimensional living…my husband says i would fight with my friends if i lived with them!thank you for the question and the article.
Hi, I wanted to leave a comment. I have had a similar experience with a man who I have a deep spiritual relationship with but not a physical one, we have met in person a few times but they usual intrupt in fight where my resentment comes to the surface. However it has never broken our relationship or our love for one another. Some relationship are better in the dark than the light of day, but its a woman’s choice. I have been with this man for three years and can releat to the agony of hoping someone will come around if you are patient and loving enough, but in reality sometimes a woman’s kindness can far extend its usefulness. I have found with my man that when I pull away and distance myself he comes running, feeling hopless and lost. And in the light of day I see all his flaws, but having a deep spiritual relationship compensates for them. Don’t give up hope of having your cake and eatting it too, but I have found that inorder to change a man, I must first change. If you need this man to grow spiritually keep him, keep him until you have fully found yourself and then chuck him and find your freedom. Go on dates, have sex enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, in time he will grow and come to you. Sometimes inorder to change we must be on the brink of distruction and filled with fear, this man must find himself without you before he can appreciate the love you offer. Anyways that just my two cents.