By DANIELLE COHEN
Back in 2012, a woman by the name of Elizabeth Wisdom posted a picture of Crater Lake in Oregon on her Instagram page.
This picture received 221 “likes” and various different comments. One of the comments which said “gasping I miss this place” was made by a man Elizabeth had never met. Because of their common interest in the lake and the public aspect of Instragram they decided to exchange phone numbers to chat.
Elizabeth decided she wanted to meet this man Denis face-to-face so she flew out to New Orleans to meet him. She Instragrammed a picture of Denis when she met him to document their weekend spent together.
From their comments back and fourth, it seemed that they were attracted to each ohter. As their relationship progressed Denis Instragrammed a picture of Elizabeth to document when they started to date.
Nine months later, Denis took Elizabeth to a barn near her home in Texas where she always dreamed of having her wedding. There he proposed to her in front of a “timeline” of their Instagram dating life which he printed out and put on the wall of the barn. The two are currently organizing their wedding.
It is amazing how social media networks can bring people together. People can post messages and images that others can relate to which in situations like this bring similar people together. If it wasn’t for Elizabeth’s hashtag on her Instagram about the Crater Lake, Denis would have never found Elizabeth.
I find this situation to be a rare occurrence because many people who meet on the Internet or on social media are taking a huge risk of the dangers behind their relationship. They have to take the chance of the possibility of talking to someone they don’t think they are talking to and sometimes maybe even a criminal or pedophile.
The movie and show “Catfish” is a prime example of this new relationship era. The show documents cyber relationships with the intentions of bringing the two individuals together in person to see if the person they have been speaking too is actually the person that they thought.
Most of the time, the person is someone who lied about their identity. People who use media networks to “date” need to be extremely careful of all the dangerous people in the world today.
This dating is potentially dangerous and emotionally heartbreaking if you are talking to someone who lied about their identity.
It creates a world of people who do not know how to talk face to face. It creates a virtual world where people don’t interact in person and it is like love is evolving into a video game where they speak through typing.
Media networks bring people together in a sense, but essentially bring people physically apart due to lack of face-to-face connections.
For more information on Elizabeth and Denis: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/this-couple-met-fell-in-love-started-dating-and-got-engaged.