Samrat Banerjee is a 26-year-old HR professional. On a regular day he reaches office around 10am and logs in, going into various online communities and chat-rooms. He leaves office around 6.30pm and logs in as soon as he reaches home. He is online almost as long as he is awake. Samrat is only one of the numerous people who live more in the virtual world than in the real one around them.

Samrat knows that. “Life is hectic and it’s very difficult for me to visit and call up my friends on a regular basis. It is far easier to keep in touch with them online, since most of them are online too. But it is true that the virtual world is becoming very real for us. We are moving away from the world around us,” he says.

So used have we become to live and meet online that Paromita Ghosh, a public relations entrepreneur, was surprised when she got a real birthday card this year. “When my mother sent me a birthday card I realised how used I am to being greeted online,” says Paromita. “Not just my personal life, I have had business clients and associates for three-four years whom I have never met in real life. All work is done online. So it would be wrong to assume that there is no trust in online relationships,” she adds.

Real Chats

The small chat window that pops up on your computer screen may be crushingly impersonal. Many miss the personal touch. “I have forgotten the voices of friends because I only meet them online. We even mourn online. If we hear of someone’s loss, we just drop a line saying how sorry we are,” says Paromita. The bonding over coffee is not possible in a chat-room.

“Words can’t express the same feelings. I can’t express the feelings that my eyes or a smile can, through chat,” says Argha Bose, a 26-year-old business consultant from Calcutta now working in Bangalore. The yellow Smiley cannot be half as warm as a real smile.

But for some these obviously don’t interfere with the feel of a “real” relationship with virtual friends. “I begin by sharing ideas. Once I get their intellectual level I decide whether we can be friends or not. I don’t find the people in the virtual world unreal. They are real people and the difference is just in the medium of communication,” explains Saikat Chaudhuri, a 25-year-old computer consultant, who is mostly online after office hours.

The chat-room is not just a place to meet those we don’t meet in the real life. It’s the easy way to ask your colleague in the next seat for lunch without moving out of your chair. “It’s not what I like doing, but yes, I have seen colleagues ‘ping’ for information without coming over to talk to you,” admits Samrat.

The Virtual Me

Some Netizens insist that their virtual personalities are an extension of their real selves. They may be so, but they are also different, in various degrees. Daniel Lyons, a US resident, was recently found to be behind the spoof blog on Steve Jobs. Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes, had been impersonating the Apple CEO and lampooning him, calling him a “benevolent dictator”. “Because it is impersonal, inhibitions are less. One can live out one’s fantasies. In the virtual world one tends to become the person that one would like people to believe he is,” says J.R.Ram, a consultant psychiatrist.

You and I don’t usually go so far as to put up a strikingly fake profile, but changing one’s average looks to “mirror-cracking” material doesn’t require much thought. Priya Roy, 27, now married, remembers a time when she was addicted to the virtual world. “I couldn’t wait to come from college and log in. While chatting with men I would pretend to be older than I am. I would also say I am from a co-educational school, though I studied in a girls’ school. Co-ed is cool. Guys think girls from a girls’ school are stuck-up,” laughs Priya.

True or fake, everyone drops his or her inhibitions online. Because the other person doesn’t know you. “I can definitely speak my mind more freely. I don’t have to worry about hurting or embarrassing the other person. There is a sense of detachment because you can’t see the person,” says Argha. Indranil Dasgupta, a 30-year-old techie, goes a step ahead to say that he is bolder and smarter online. “There was a girl in my para whom I liked. But I never had the courage to go and talk to her. But it’s different online. I found the girl on Orkut and actually scrapped her,” he laughs.

The other self is not always meant to be one. “My words may lead him to draw a picture that is different from what I am in reality,” warns Paromita. So she is more reserved online. “I am a warm and friendly person, but if I carry that to the virtual world I might attract the wrong kind of people.”

Different Strokes

There is also a difference in the rules of relationships. The virtual world changes faster than the world around us. For every couple that has met and married online, there are many who have changed virtual friends frequently. “You become very involved with someone for a few weeks or months and then find another friend. Online friendships are often not very enduring,” admits Arijit Nag, a 25-year-old content writer. A painful proposition for those more emotional than the others. “I have found many good friends online. But a few evenings back one of my virtual friends told me that she was looking for some information. I told her to be online while I could check a few books. The next day she accused me of wasting her time,” says Avijit Roy Choudhury, a health sector employee.

And “sustaining” many relationships at a time is that much easier, as none of them really demand much. “As there is a degree of anonymity, people are comfortable flirting with many people, even if they are in a steady relationship in real life,” admits Indranil.

Many blame it on hectic lifestyle and demanding jobs. “Where is the time to sustain a real-life relationship? A virtual relationship is there only as long as you are online,” says Paromita, who is married.

J. R. Ram, however, warns that too many hours spent in the virtual world are detrimental to the development of an adolescent’s social skills and may hamper forming meaningful relations in the real world.