Romance in Wires: Relationships From Online to Offline

This empirical study explores how a group of residents in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, use the Internet as a communication tool to broaden their social network, and how the Internet opens the possibilities for finding romance. The Internet overcomes the space limitation in communication, therefore the subjects use it to meet people that they never met in real life before. With phenomenological approach, this research is focusing on examining how five respondents use computer-mediated communication (CMC) for their socialization needs. Each of the subject in this study is entangled in different background situations, and it influenced how she/he used the Internet for CMC, and make media selections. The data collected from qualitative semi-structured interviews and CMC messages demonstrates the intimacy between the subjects and their online lovers. The elements that exist in common offline relationships (sharing hopes, joy, sadness, fear, lust, etc.) are also being shared among the online couples in this study.