Semantic Development of Love and Romantic Action Procedure in the Context of Online Communication Experience in Social Networks

Love which encompasses a wide range of emotions such as passion, intimacy, companionship, and togetherness manifests itself in a variety of areas. With the advent of the Internet, love and romantic relationships in the online space have been gradually formed between people. The online love is related to lacking an in-person experience of love that has been created and developed through the Internet and social networks. This new experience has made a difference in building a romantic relationship and understanding love. Hence, we are facing a new form of modern love. Accordingly, the purpose of this article was investigate the semantic developments of love and procedures of romantic actions in the context of online communication experiences in social networks. In this context, there are theoretically different views on love experience. The theory of love triangle developed by Robert Sternberg considers love to be a 3-dimensional phenomenon, having the 3 main components of intimacy, sexual desire, and commitment as the sides of a triangle. According to Sternberg, these components are not balanced in every type of love. In other words, their different levels can create several types of love in human life although a perfect and valuable love is the love in which all the 3 mentioned components are balanced and maintained in the long run in Sternberg's view. With the development of Sternberg theory and consideration of love in the heart of virtualization of love experience in modern times, Ben Ze-ev (2004) believed that an intense intimacy required in love could be usually formed in romantic online relationships, which is sometimes more intense than in ordinary romantic relationships.

The research method was based on an epistemological approach associated with qualitative methodology and phenomenological analysis. The data analysis was done through a 7-step Colaizzi process. The sample size contained 19 people, with whom in-depth and semi-structured interviews were conducted. The durations of interviews were 50 to 90 min. The selection of the sample members was done based on the logic of maximum diversity and research purpose. The sample size was selected according to the logic of theoretical saturation in qualitative studies.

Based on all the research steps taken in Colaizzi’s strategy, 13 sub-categories were divided into 4 categories that were capable of fully describing the research topic. The 1st category considered love in a range of meanings such as coexistence, companionship, and equal exchange of emotions. This category and its sub-categories showed that an individual's presence in the online space could orient the actors’ perceptual layers towards establishing a romantic relationship and possibly experiencing it. The 2nd category was about the evolution of actors’ perceptual layers towards establishing a romantic relationship in the online space, something like artificialization of emotions, fluidity of relationship, desiring renewal of relationship instead of repairing it, and breaking collective taboos. The 3rd category described the forms of action in a virtual romantic relationship. In this category and its sub-categories, our results revealed that some actors took steps to start a relationship by actively proposing directly or indirectly and commenting on and liking the posts of those they were interested in, while some others were waiting for the followees to start coming to them. Finally, the 4th category was concerned with an individual’s behavioral procedures when beginning, continuing, and ending a relationship, thus showing that ending or forgetting a virtual romantic relationship was much easier than stopping or forgetting a real world relationship.