As it says on the tin: a note on “virtual” love.

Sociology of Emotions

‘And when I knew… when I realized… it was too late. My life was broken. I was in love.’ (Anna, 39, comemo3’s translation from Catalan)

An interviewee used these words to tell us about her love story with a work colleague who lived miles away, and with whom she had started to chat and exchange emails on a regular basis. Those messages that had once been plain work messages turned slowly and half unconsciously into more and more private emails in which both parties seductively exposed themselves, letting more and more personal issues, fears, hopes, experiences and desires come to the foreground. The emotions that moulded and were moulded by this process evolved from surprise, to joy, to expectation, to dependency, to love; the shifts between them were subtle, quick, uncontrolled. The realization that, at the other end of the line, someone special was holding one’s existence culminated a process…

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