I was rummaging through an entire 7-year-old blog archive when I spotted an email I posted in private before. The email was from Manila Times columnist Mark J. Macapagal, the guy made famous by an article he wrote in 2003 called “The One That Got Away”.

Here’s the whole part of his email he wrote in response to my question on online love relationship which was some kind of an epidemic then. Take heed the counsel of the wise. I hope you find this valuable more than usual promotional items being offered online to most loyal blog readers. Someday, you’ll either thank me or spank me for sharing this, whichever suits you best.

Thing is, I don’t believe that there’s any such thing as an internet relationship. You cannot fall in love with someone over the internet.

The reason I say this is because one day, you’ll have to actually see each other and start a true relationship. Yes, sometimes you can meet and the transition is very natural and easy, but oftentimes, the transition isn’t easy and you can’t blame the other person for that. You cannot blame anyone if they can love you online but they can’t do the same in real life and because of that distinction, there is no such thing as love found online. There is an online love, but it’s not the same as real love. It only becomes real if you can make the transition.

And even if you do make the transition to loving each other once you’ve physically met, you’ll see that it’s not the same thing as what you share online. So for me, an online relationship is no more than a shadow of what could possibly happen. No matter how you swear you love each other over the internet, the end goal is not to just know each other over the internet, the end goal is to be with each other in reality. So any internet relationship is merely passing time until you get the chance to actually meet.

But by all means, you should meet this person and see if you can make the transition. If you don’t, you’ll never be able to get the notion out of your head that you should be with that person and that will make it impossible to be with anyone else.