Bringing Online and Offline Living Together

  3. Meeting online companions in-person.

  As friendships and romances evolve on the internet, people eventually want to talk on the  phone and meet in-person. That's usually a very natural, healthy progression. The relationship can deepen when people get to see and hear each other, when they get a chance to visit each  others environment. They also get a chance to realize the misconceptions they may have developed online about each other. That, in turn, will help them understand themselves.4. Meeting offline companions online.

  If a person encourages family, friends, and colleagues to connect with him in cyberspace, he is opening a different channel of communication with them. Almost everyone does e-mail  nowadays, but there's also chat, message boards, interacting with web sites, online games, even imaginative role playing. He may discover something new about his companion's personality and interests. And his companion may discover something new about him.

5. Bringing online behavior offline.

  River, an online friend of mine, once described cyberspace living as "training wheels." On the internet a person may be experimenting with new ways to express herself. She may be  developing new behaviors and aspects of her identity. If she introduces them into her f2f lifestyle and relationships, she may better understand those behaviors and why previously she was unable to develop them in the f2f world.

6. Bringing offline behavior online.

  Translating an aspect of one's identity from one realm to another often strengthens it. You are testing it, refining it, in a new environment. So if it's beneficial to bring online behaviors offline, then it's also beneficial to bring offline behaviors online. Cyberspace gives a person the opportunity to try out his usual f2f behaviors and methods of self expression in new situations, with new people.

  As I suggested earlier, there is a caveat about this integration process. Some aspects of a person's identity may feel shameful to the person. They may be rejected by or hurtful to other people. If acted upon, they may even be illegal. In that complex universe of cyberspace, there are many places where people can go to give expression to these problematic aspects of their identity. Should they tell people about it? Should they express these things in-person? Should they carry into cyberspace a problematic behavior from their f2f life?

  There is no simple answer to these questions. Under optimal conditions, translating troublesome issues from one realm to the other can be helpful, even therapeutic. A person who learns to accept his homosexuality in an online support group may benefit by coming out in the f2f world. But a pedophile who goes online to carry out his intentions creates only harm.Offline/online "integration" that results in a blind acting out of impulses that hurts other people is not healthy. In fact, it's not psychological integration at all. Integration involves self-understanding and personal growth, which involves working through - and not simply acting out - the problematic aspects of one's identity.