There are virtual lovers who value their bodiless intimate relation more than their physical personal contacts in their own environment. Merel Mirage is a young Dutch women who lived in Nicaragua, Japan and Tibet for many years. Hands that begin to shake as soon as the online contact has been established. The excitement you feel when the Other gives you a compliment. Computer-mediated telelove is a game of exchanging meanings.
Human energy is invested in different kinds of symbolic interaction.
People invest a lot of energy in these virtual relationships and they gain typically human experiences. They feel real pain when they are left by their virtual partners, they become desperate when they are neglected by their virtual partners and they can thoroughly enjoy the role play made possible in a virtual world. The symbolic interactions taking place in virtual worlds are neither more nor less real than those taking place in the 'real' world. Human beings are 'tool-making animals'. But our humanity is mainly determined by our ability to make meaningful symbols and to exchange them.