What is it like to have a relationship with someone you met though the internet?

What is it like to have a relationship with someone you met though the internet? Ani and Yulia's Story: an Indonesian Australian story Ani and Yulia are Indonesian women who both met their Turkish-Australian husbands while chatting on the same popular internet chatting site. Their Turkish-Australian husbands, Ali and Fahim, were also friends. Yulia's husband Ali was the one who recommended the chatting site to Ani's future husband Fahim and also taught him how to use the internet and the chatting sites. Yulia's husband Ali told Ani's future husband, Fahim about his internet chatting experience and how two years ago he met his wife, Yulia an Indonesian woman of the same Muslim faith through this medium. Yulia in turn became a referee for Ani's husband Fahim, telling Ani what her future husband is like as a person, what marrying into a Turkish-Australian family is like and also about the Australian lifestyle. In both these women's stories, a third person referee and their Islamic faith were important factors in their process of gaining trust and their decision to marry the men they met on the internet chatting site. Yulia was currently breaking up an online relationship with an Indonesian man who was living in Germany when she received a message from her future husband, Ali on a specifically Islamic channel (discussion group) of the internet chatting site. Her future husband Ali ended up advising Yulia and she initially referred to him as her brother, as she saw him as an older brother figure who was wise and caring. During their second chatting session, Yulia's future husband, Ali asked her to marry him. To show his serious intent, he gave as a character reference the name of an Indonesian Islamic cleric or Ustadz, that the couple both know as a moderator of the Islamic channel internet discussion group, and who was currently living in Australia. After speaking to the Indonesian Ustadz and also doing an Islamic prayer for peace of mind called Sholat Istiharoh, Yulia trusted her future husband's 'good nature' and serious intention to marry her and thus agreed to his proposal. Her future husband, Ali also went to Indonesia to meet her parents and for the wedding. While, the other Indonesian woman Ani, said that it took her a long time, before she trusted her future husband. The process took six months after which her future husband Fahim visited Indonesia to meet her parents, ask for her hand and show his serious intent for marriage. Ani said that while she was chatting with Fahim online, by email and on the phone, she never took his marriage proposal seriously until he came to Indonesia to see her. She said that it was difficult for her parents to trust him. This was not because they met on the internet, but because her parents see him as a foreigner, they were worried about the cultural differences, and were also unable to communicate with him in English. Ani's parents asked her aunt, who could speak English to translate their conversation with Fahim and to find out a bit more about him. Ani also went to see Yulia in Jakarta, at the recommendation Fahim, as an 'Indonesian' who could be a character referee and give Ani a picture of what being in a cross-cultural marriage and life in Australia is like. At the time Yulia had been married for two years to Ali, her Turkish-Australian husband. She was still based in Jakarta trying to complete her university studies but had been to visit her husband and gone to Australia on holidays and met her husband's friend Fahim, Ani's fiancé. Ani also said that she turned to her Islamic faith to give her guidance regarding her decision to marry. She believes like Yulia, that having the same religious faith to their future husband is important. The first time Ani's husband, Fahim went onto the internet chatting site's open forum, he went specifically to post a message that he was looking for a wife and that being Muslim is a criteria. Although he did not go into the specific Islamic channel of the chatting site, he still received a lot of responses and decided on Ani as a serious prospective wife after seeing her photo and having private email correspondence with her. Ani answered his message for a prospective wife and put in an interest, but she says that she did not take him seriously at first and replied more out of curiosity and fun. When Ani met Fahim online, she was working in an administrative job for a private company. At work Ani was able to regularly use the internet and often chatted online from her desk during her breaks. She said that she had three other men from different countries trying to pursue a serious relationship with her online, which she also did not take seriously. She said she did not trust the internet medium nor did she trust any communication of love or online proposals. She said that out of the men with whom she chatted on the internet, and who tried to pursue a serious relationship with her she decided to marry the Turkish-Australian Fahim, because he went to Indonesia to meet her parents. Thus, it was only after a face-to-face encounter that she were then able to move on to a more 'serious' commitment. Ani also said that she did not tell her husband Fahim that she only replied to his call for a wife out of curiosity and fun until after they were married. Nor did she tell him that she didn't see their relationship as serious until he came to Indonesia. Ani further states that she was freer to discuss everything after they were married and that her love grew for him after they were married. Both Yulia and Ani had friends in Indonesia who were worried about the process of their internet relationships and marriage proposals. When Yulia's friends said she must be crazy to marry someone she just met on an internet chatting site, Yulia replied to them by saying that she left her fate in God's hands. She explained that if her future husband, Ali did not have good intentions he would be the one who had to face God and receive his judgement. Yulia also thinks that it was a 'miracle' that her parents approved of her marriage because they used to tell her that she should not get married until she finished her university degree and had worked for a while. Yulia also found that there was a difference between when she did the Islamic prayer for peace of mind or Sholat Istiharoh for Ali, and when she did so for her previous relationship with the Indonesian man who lived in Germany. She said that before she did not have peace of mind like she did with her future Turkish-Australian husband Ali; furthermore God sent her a dream as guidance. Yulia, however, does not in generally recommend people to use the internet to find spouses because she has had female Indonesian friends who have had bad experiences meeting men on the internet, were lied to, or who had met men with ulterior motives and were not serious about marriage. She finds her case (and Ani's) to be an exception. Yulia and Ani are both currently living in Australia with their husbands and they also have two young children each. http://rspas.anu.edu.au/anthropology/intermarriage/internet.php?searchterm=aniyulia&findings=n Picture taken from www.growabrain.typepad.com/growabrain/internet