Reports are continuously emerging of cyber lovers being cheated, hurt or involved in scandals.
Not only have marriages been ruined in real life, but more serious and dangerous situations have
also arisen. Sure, if you feel lonely, bored and you've got a computer at hand, cyber love may
seem like a great means to kill time. According to a survey conducted by sina.com, which involved
more than 17,000 Internet surfers, 69% of them had tried it. Another survey by sohu.com found that
more than 50% of net surfers trust cyber love. On February 15, a man was found trying to commit suicide
at his home in Wuhan. Afterwards, he admitted that he had killed his cyber lover the last eve on Valentine's Day.
The man, with the net name "lying Dust", got to know his cyber lover "Rain Drop", a 25-year-old flower store
keeper, at the end of 2003.
But Rain Drop's parents disapproved of her having such an intimate cyber relationship.
So on Valentine's Day, she told Flying Dust that she had to break up with him. He flew into a rage and strangled her
to death, and then tried to cut the arteries on his neck and wrists. "I love her, I want to be with her forever," he
said later, when asked why he had done it. On Apri l7, a man's body was found in a hotel room in Dengshikou, Beijing.
The man, called Zhang Yang, had been killed by his cyber lover, Liang Yixia, because he refused to marry her. Liang was arrested when she came back to get her mobile phone recharger. According to Liang, in May 2003 she had been raped by three men she met on the Internet, and they also took her money. After that, Zhang, a seemingly gentle and rich man, renewed her trust in cyber love. But after they had sex, he told her that it was impossible for him to marry a cyber lover. Liang felt so humiliated that she fed him with sleeping pills and then strangled him with adhesive tape. At the police station Liang said she felt no regret for what she had done. "He deserved this punishment I gave him," she said repeatedly. However, it's not all bad news. "In real life you come across various bad things, such as cheating, sexual harassment and murder. But that's not all you find," said 30-year-old Liu Jiantao, who met his wife on the Internet. The couple will celebrate their wedding anniversary in June. "Surfing on the Internet and having cyber lovers are the same thing. Like in real life, sincerity, responsibility and self-discipline are needed. And you always have to be cautious
and know how to protect yourself," he said.
