A random question.......

[meowmeowmeow 1]

So, I'm just curious...I noticed a lot of couples here met online....

does this in your opinion hurt your chances slightly when it comes to proving your relationship at your interviews?

hubby and i met in TR, but we kept in touch by emails, chatting, and phone calls (we stupidly didn't save the chats...and read my sig about the phone calls), but we have a bunch of emails....

i'm a tad worried this might hurt us.

also, i've got a friend (not on VJ) who's in the same boat as me except that she did meet her hubby through the net. they met when a mutual friend gave both of them the other's email addresses to add to MSN messenger....

is that a weird story for embassies to hear?

thanks for your input.

[caybee 21]

There are SO many couples on VJ who met online (including us) that I really don't think it hurts your chances. I've seen more unfavorable responses from consulates when a couple was introduced by the beneficiary's family, but even that can be overcome with enough proof. I think the consulates usually look less at how the couple met and more at their proof of ongoing relationship since then.

Just a random theory to throw out there before 8 a.m. on a Saturday: Since couples who met online may tend to be people who use the Internet a lot anyway for much of their correspondence and may be more used to online chatting and so forth, just guessing, they MAY naturally have more proof on hand than, say, a couple who met in connection with school or work and spent a great deal of time together IRL without having much to document that until they realized they needed to be saving it. Thinking back on past U.S. relationships, I'd be hard pressed to offer physical proof of some of them unless the other person was camera happy, since I'm not. On the other hand, the online couple may already be keeping chat logs and saving e-mails, and brief overseas visits to each other are more likely to be Kodak moments than, say, a weekend picnic in the park between two USCs, coworkers, or classmates who are used to seeing each other every day. So again, the online couple may naturally have more photographic proof from the beginning. If the online couples do have a red flag from having met online, perhaps the proof they naturally have may offset any disadvantage they may have compared to the couple that met IRL and has spent months or years together. Totally guessing here.

[meowmeowmeow 1]

thanks for your comment...well, i'm not a big fan of the net and neither is he. when we would log on to chat, we'd always use the webcam/mic option so no typing was involved, hence why we have no chat logs..and honestly, we never thought we'd be in this situation, our first choice was to move to UAE together and live/work there a while, but that was before the economy hit the bottom last year....so yeah...

well, guess we'll try our best, we both wrote affidavits about our relationship so hope that will be something too....

[one...two...tree 2,762]

There are SO many couples on VJ who met online (including us) that I really don't think it hurts your chances. I've seen more unfavorable responses from consulates when a couple was introduced by the beneficiary's family, but even that can be overcome with enough proof. I think the consulates usually look less at how the couple met and more at their proof of ongoing relationship since then.

Well said.

[Rhiannercakes 14]

thanks for your comment...well, i'm not a big fan of the net and neither is he. when we would log on to chat, we'd always use the webcam/mic option so no typing was involved, hence why we have no chat logs..and honestly, we never thought we'd be in this situation, our first choice was to move to UAE together and live/work there a while, but that was before the economy hit the bottom last year....so yeah...

well, guess we'll try our best, we both wrote affidavits about our relationship so hope that will be something too....

My fiance and I use mics all the time, so we don't have much of a chat option.

We didn't end up sending any of the chats in, but I've heard that showing that you've turned the mic on at so-and-so time and turning it off at so-and-so time can be used, since it's sort of like a telephone call.

[meowmeowmeow 1]

thanks for your comment...well, i'm not a big fan of the net and neither is he. when we would log on to chat, we'd always use the webcam/mic option so no typing was involved, hence why we have no chat logs..and honestly, we never thought we'd be in this situation, our first choice was to move to UAE together and live/work there a while, but that was before the economy hit the bottom last year....so yeah...

well, guess we'll try our best, we both wrote affidavits about our relationship so hope that will be something too....

My fiance and I use mics all the time, so we don't have much of a chat option.

We didn't end up sending any of the chats in, but I've heard that showing that you've turned the mic on at so-and-so time and turning it off at so-and-so time can be used, since it's sort of like a telephone call.

really...well, i guess we can start with that. we never really thought of saving any of our chats, but guess now i'll have to start....we met in 2006 but our emails only start from about valentine's day 2007 (we talked mainly on the phone in those days...)

i guess i'm just really worried. i keep seeing these sad stories here about how people send in tons of evidence only to be rejected, or how one small thing can keep things from flowing smoothly....

guess i'm trying to do what i can to make sure that we don't get denied...