Flirting On and Offline

Abstract

One of the most romantic sites to visit nowadays is cyberspace. At any moment, millions of people are surfing that space and having romantic affairs. Why do people feel compelled to leave the comfortable surroundings of their actual world and immerse themselves in this seductive space? Why are emotions so intense in this seemingly imaginary world? This paper tries to explore some of these issues by discussing the type of activity involved in offline and online affairs. A central contention of this paper is that most online affairs are more similar to flirting than to actual sexual affairs. The paper analyses the type of activities underlying flirting and their implications for online romantic affairs.1