Quote from: RE on Jan 30, 2025, 10:12 AMIf you only know a person through the web, you can't trust them.

Yes...quite a bit different from IRL.

Fairbanks man found guilty of murdering longtime wife-30 years of IRL
https://www.webcenterfairbanks.com/2024/11/28/fairbanks-man-found-guilty-murdering-longtime-wife/

Quote from: REIt's like with online dating.  You can meet a person online and begin to get to know them, but if you're wise you wouldn't agree to marry the person just based on that.  You would have to take the next step and meet in person and spend time together before you take that step.  I'd have to spend at least a couple of months of being with the person before I took that step.

Quite reasonable. So...after getting to know your wife IRL, sniff testing her before the advent of the interenet even, it led to a long and meaningful relationship that exists to this very day? Or was it somewhat....less...?

Quote from: REFor a good friendship, somewhat less.  Kdog and I have spent quite a bit of time together in visits plus our camping  expedition during the solar eclipse, so I have good trust with him as a close friend, but not enough to marry him. lol..

Again reasonable. Not sure of the value of "close friend" considering he didn't even make it as far as someone you did marry though. And how did that judgement go through time? Still do letters, birthday cards, Xmas packages? She must at least send along occasional care packages to the facility?

Quote from: REEven with the video nowadays, the web is very two dimensional.  If most of your interaction is text based, it's even less.  A lot of information is conveyed non-verbally when you are with a pescon in body language, facial expressions and voice modulation.  Even smell comes into play with pheromones.  There's no substitute for IRL interactions to develop a full relationship of trust.
RE

Indeed. Yet for some, even your theory doesn't work. Such is the way with theories I suppose.