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The much hyped Shoaib Malik-Ayesha Siddiqui saga has served as a wake up call for many youngsters, who are now realising the downside of phone relationships. These days phone buddies and Facebook friends are often exposed to crushing sadness when they learn that their soulmates on the Internet have other real-life loves.

 Psychologists warn that spending hours on the Internet cannot replace face-to-face meetings, which are often the only way to truly judge the genuineness of a relationship.
 Take the case of commerce student and talented dancer Shweta Varadarajan who bumped into another college student Nikhil Santhanam at an inter-college cultural. They exchanged numbers and immediately added each other on Facebook. The two became thick friends and regularly chatted online, this progressed to frequent SMSes and late night calls where they shared daily details. But Shweta and Nikhil never met despite living in the same city. Nikhil took it for granted they were a couple till Shweta told him she was seeing her senior Praveen and he was shattered.  
Youngsters say it is a common phenomenon for phone buddies who meet up on Facebook to connect on the mobile phone and believe they are in a relationship.
 “One of my friends constantly texted and talked to this guy she had met during a play. All of us thought they had a ‘thing’ going on because they would be on the phone with each other all the time. Later, when this guy started reducing his frequency of SMS and calls, she was completely broken and nearly went into depression the moment she realised he was seeing someone else at the same time,” narrates Tara Anand, a fine arts student.
Tara’s friend soon found out that her phone buddy’s girlfriend had returned after going abroad on an exchange programme.
While some relationships end on a positive note, most can be dangerous, say experts, since everything is based on an assumption.
 Sowmya Manivannan, a psychological counsellor and trainer, has advised many youngsters who make assumptions in a relationship and get carried away. “What I’ve observed is that this generation is in a hurry for everything and even before getting into a relationship they don’t want to set things straight making way for a lot of trouble later on. “Often they are disturbed about losing such friends, but the good part about these youngsters is that they are able to forget and move on in life, which is a great thing,” she says.

Age Correspondent