Why Online-Only Love Is Not 'Redefining' Relationships - it's avoidance of them in real life.
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
I recently read an article discussing the rise of “online-only relationships,” including couples considering marriage before ever meeting in real life. The piece framed this as a challenge to traditional dating norms, almost as though technology is ushering in an exciting new relational frontier.
Honestly, I found it deeply troubling and anger provoking.
Not because I am anti-technology. I am not. Technology can absolutely support connection. Many healthy couples meet online. Long-distance relationships can work when there is genuine intention to build a shared life in reality. But that is not what concerns me here.
What concerns me is the growing normalisation of relationships that exist entirely through screens, with no lived, embodied, real-world relational experience whatsoever.
Relationships where people are discussing lifelong commitment without having shared ordinary life together. Without navigating conflict in the same physical space. Without experiencing each other’s nervous systems, habits, moods, rhythms, touch, silence or physical presence.
That is not the evolution of intimacy. It is the avoidance of it. Here are some findings about the rise of digital, online-only 'relationships' - from the research published:
47% chose an online relationship because they fell in love with someone who lives far away
60% satisfy sexual attraction through sexting, voice, or video calls
85% believe online relationships can be exclusive
61% have actual dates online, like dinner or a picnic together
56% have introduced an online partner to friends or family
30% would marry an online partner while staying fully online
82% say the mystery of never meeting is a turn-on (32% “big time,” 50% “somewhat”)
56% feel more productive and successful in an online relationship
As a relationship psychotherapist, I think we are beginning to confuse emotional fantasy with emotional intimacy. They are not the same thing.
A real relationship is not built solely through communication. It is built through reality.
It is built through shared environments and lived experience. Through spending time together when life is boring, stressful, inconvenient or emotionally messy. Through learning how someone behaves when they are tired, disappointed, frustrated, grieving, distracted or overwhelmed.
It is built through the very human process of witnessing another person in their fullness.
You cannot fully know someone through a screen.
You cannot understand relational compatibility without proximity. Without witnessing how someone moves through the world physically and emotionally. Without experiencing chemistry beyond words. Without navigating everyday life together.
Real relationships require embodiment.
They require touch, affection, eye contact, sexual chemistry, physical comfort and nervous system attunement. Human beings are not designed to bond purely cognitively. We bond physiologically. There is an enormous amount of relational information exchanged through physical presence alone.
This is why cohabiting changes relationships. Why travelling together changes relationships. Why spending ordinary weekends together changes relationships.
Why conflict in real life reveals relational dynamics that endless messaging never will.
Relationships move through developmental stages that can only happen in reality.
There is the romantic stage where attraction and projection dominate. The courting stage where emotional investment deepens. The transition into shared life. The negotiation of routines, habits, emotional needs and expectations. The inevitable moments of disappointment and frustration. The monotony that long-term relationships sometimes move through.
The need to repair after conflict. The challenge of sustaining intimacy when life becomes stressful or repetitive.
This is the work of relationship. And this work cannot happen meaningfully through fantasy alone.
Because ultimately, relationships are not sustained by communication volume. They are sustained by relational capacity.
The capacity to tolerate discomfort. To stay emotionally present. To repair after conflict. To maintain intimacy through ordinary life. To remain connected even when projection fades and reality arrives.
What worries me about digital-only relationships is that many allow people to remain inside idealisation indefinitely. Screens create distance from the very relational experiences that test and strengthen genuine intimacy.
You can curate yourself endlessly online. Delay vulnerability. Control exposure. Avoid many of the relational tensions that naturally emerge in embodied partnership. And in doing so, people can mistake emotional intensity for emotional depth.
I think many digital-only relationships function as pseudo relationships. Not because feelings are necessarily fake, but because the relationship itself has not yet entered reality.
There is a difference between attachment and relational integration. Real intimacy requires integration into each other’s actual lives.
That means seeing each other beyond carefully managed communication. It means confronting incompatibilities. Managing practical realities. Negotiating needs. Experiencing emotional friction. Learning how to reconnect after disconnection. Feeling another person’s humanity up close.
Not simply imagining it.
I also think we need to speak honestly about emotional avoidance. Some people are gravitating towards digital-only relationships because they feel safer than real-world intimacy. Real relationships require vulnerability, unpredictability and emotional resilience. They require risk.
You cannot mute someone’s nervous system in real life. You cannot log off from difficult emotional moments inside genuine partnership. You cannot sustain long-term intimacy without eventually confronting yourself.
That is why real relationships grow us. And while technology may offer connection, it cannot replace the developmental process of human relating.
At Love Collective Global, we are seeing increasing numbers of singles exhausted by digitally diluted intimacy. High-achieving professionals, emotionally intelligent individuals, people who genuinely want partnership but no longer want performative connection disguised as intimacy. They want relationships that exist in reality.
Relationships where chemistry can be felt physically. Where emotional safety is built through lived experience. Where conflict is worked through face-to-face. Where love exists not only through words, but through action, consistency, touch and presence.
Because ultimately, healthy relationships are not built solely through emotional expression.
They are built through shared human life.
I’m Sarah Louise Ryan, relationship psychotherapist certified in Imago Therapy - dating & relationship specialist and founder of Love Collective Global. My work supports individuals and couples navigating modern relationships with greater emotional awareness, intentionality and connection in the real world.
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