Well Fyz, the way I like to look at TSG is like a married couple who loves each other dearly but has those few up's and downs along the way.
It's only normal for some people to find them-selves so involved on an internet site that it becomes just as emotional to them as if it where actually happening to them in life. I see it as," they loose sight of what is real". Now saying this I know I'll get some flap from people, but hey I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it. Some will say things like, "so you're saying the people behind the nicknames aren't real?" And I am saying...well yes in away they aren't...to me that is. It's my opinion and it's a nice safe environment I stick myself into. If I can't touch, taste or smell the "person" I am offended by, I don't get feelings for them...in other-words they don't become truly real to me, so what they say can be said to me and I really don't care because I don't feel it. But I do know what it is like to become so involved with people you "meet" on the internet that you actually can become so upset, or "fall in love" or whatever...And I know that that usually happens to those whom are some how isolated...whether that be through sickness and being house bound or that maybe they are just lonely and some how incapable of finding a friend in "life", or for some it's seen as a safe way to meet people because they are so shy, the list goes on... Whatever the reason, they become lost in a "world" that they loose sight of the fact that when they turn off their computer, it's gone. They don't have to read what upsets them, they don't have to answer, they don't have to give the power of themselves to the words others type on a screen. They have a choice. - to allow what someone has typed to effect them, or to read it as they would read a book or a news paper.
It's for those whom have actually met in person and for those whom correspond with their loved ones that can truly say this is an extension of their world, because they have the reality to focus and gain ground again...where those who do not have this true reality are really still just lost in the fantasy of it. It's there that if anyone should interrupt this fantasy, that irrationality can take over and emotions can become overwhelming.