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Love in the Time of Pixels
The Escapist has piece, on this Valentine's Day, highlighting a relationship begun in a Virtual World that lead to the real life marriage of the players. From the article: "We think of these places most often as games, but there is much more going on in them than simply play. What we often forget is that any place in which two or more people can interact, whatever else it is, is a communications medium of a certain sort. Connecting via an online world - whether it's Second Life, World of Warcraft, EverQuest or any other - is not different from connecting via a chat room, via Friendster, via telephone or even in the time-honored way people sometimes connect at a party." Have you had any successful online experiences of the online variety (that you're willing to share)?
Many Males Online role playing Girls!
and the reaction to one's words after a few slipped pixels is always a good sign.
... well ...
Now if they hadn't disabled the hack in Sims 2 with the latest patch
Let's just say that choosing an online avatar that actually corresponds to one's self is a good thing.
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But this isn't really all that special or new, is it?
I met my wife on a Counter-Strike server in 2000.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Nah.
I'm an ass in games. I talk a lot of smack, backstab, and just generally make other people miserable (if I decide I don't like them, which is more often than not). I like playing the bad guy. In real life, I'm nothing like that. I got over actually being the bad guy ten years ago.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Some people point out that in MMORPGs the women are really men. Generally, this is as we all know true.
:)
But one thing I've noticed about "games" like There is that the more active female players generally really are female.
Well, at least they SOUND like women on the microphone anyway. Still, my point is generally that there seems to be a major difference in games like WoW and CoH from games like There and Second Life.
On the other hand, the pretty, skinny, barbi-like avatars of There.Com probably don't resemble the players controlling them.
So be careful if you fall in love with that Beauty Queen in There.Com. At least in WoW if you are in love with a cow they probably really are a cow.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
So how many here have found their significent other in an online game?
"I met my wife on a Counter-Strike server in 2000."
You downloaded your wife?
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
fak3r.com
Unless you're planning to have children, there is no good reason to get married, especially if you are a man. Why would you? You only expose yourself to huge liabilities and risk financial ruin. If you are happy together, that ought to be enough.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I met my wife in a text-based RPG called TowerMUSH. Many of my friends warned be to be extremely cautious, and even told me that it was a huge mistake. But we've been married for 7 years this June, and it's been great.
A few pieces of advice for others who are getting into internet relationships: Don't treat them any differently from a real relationship, with one exception: Be especially wary of being lied too. The internet makes it so much easier. Also, NEVER RUSH. Me and my wife knew eachother for 4 or 5 months before we met in person for the first time. And then it was another 14 months past that before we got married. And that was 14 months of her living in the same apartment building as me while we dated and got to know eachother.
So yes, it can work. It can be wonderful. But please, be careful. There are many real horror stories out there. My wife actually went through one before she met me. She had been engaged once before, and the guy cheated on her and used her, destroyed her credit, and then dumped her. The aftermath of that still hasn't gone away, though we're working on it slowly.
Matthew Walker
http://www.tweeterdiet.com/ - My Diet Tracking Tool
ah, so nice to hear from the embittered and distrustful amongst us.
Sure, maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but noone is requiring you to get married, or even live with someone.
Some people prefer the single life, living with thier pets or tamagotchi, able to live online at 2 am instead of having to go to bed and do unseemly things that make you all warm and fuzzy inside.
That's the beauty of it, you get to choose. Now, in Japan, you'd be obligated to give V-Day Choco to your boss, co-workers, friends and boyfriends - and supposedly they'd give you Choco on White Day. And you'd be all stressed out by the whole thing. There V-Day is more of an event than Christmas is for us. And New Years has more meaning.
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I met my future wife online in 1985. We both ran local BBSs, spent long hours chatting and a relationship quickly developed.
We were married online in Dec. 1990. The pastor and both of us called a multi-line BBS and had several friend join as witnesses. The service was done and we were married. Later that night, we have a service IRL just to placate the family and all, but we all signed a document and had it notarized stating that our official wedding took place online.
Evidently someone saved a transcript for posterity's sake and it surfaced on the web a few years ago:
http://www.skepticfiles.org/aj/wed_b&c.htm
I understand nobody is forcing it, but I am making a stronger argument than that it doesn't make sense to me. I am saying that many people choose to do it when it doesn't make sense, objectively. I am not distrustful, just skeptical. And I am definitely not embittered. But I am rational, and there is little or no rational justification for many marriages.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I think several of them resulted in pretty fast marragies and fast marriage endings (I can't spell marraige, sorry). In one case she deleted of one of the guys players.
Apparently she was somewhat cute and somewhat charming - not really devious, just a nut case.
Normally I wouldn't have cared at all, but I found it particularly disturbing that she had children and was dragging them through all of this with her.
Ok - not so great a V day story, but the other side of the coin I suppose.
Back in the 90's I mudded a lot, which was effectively MMORPG without the graphics and there where people who would wander off to some secluded corner of the mud and chat and kiss and emote and all that. They often would group together. Some even, myself included, would travel hundreds of miles for face to face meetings with other mudders of the same game. I know some romances sprung that way, others died (when people finally met the person they thought was clearly someone else.)
What was always amazing to me was the people who were married, raising kids, etc. who could still find time for 3-8 hours of mudding each day. I really expect that is not unlike today, with graphics added.
Lastly, to commemorate the day, a p03m I typed on /. 6 years ago:
Dedicated to all the friends I made online over the years and haven't seen since.A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
After 4 long term relationships over the past 15 years with people I met in bars, pubs, clubs and even Athens airport (the longest of the 4) I'm finally marrying in June the woman I met on a dating website. Make of that what you will..
The problem with meeting your signifigant other on an MMO or other game is that people generaly play games to escape from real life. MMO's in particual, people play to act out a role they don't get to in real life. The percentage of people who are acting anything like their real life personality is very small.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but in the general case I would think it is a bad idea to base a real life relationship on interaction in a world that is detached, and fundamentaly different than the real one. A world who's purpose is to escape from the real one. Such a relationship would be as fragile as any other relationship that is built on false pretenses, even if they both have the best of intentions.
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
"when it doesn't make sense, objectively"
If you can't read that and understand why people get married, then you will enjoy a long, prosperous and emotionally empty life. See, there is more to life than the rational, the cost benefit analysis and love falls in that domain. I'm sure when you present that argument to a girlfriend, she gets all *tingly* inside knowing that objectivity trumps emotion. Oooh baby, now that's romance.
Sig under construction since 1998.
I met someone on DALnet and had known that for about 3-4 years beforehand and then she moved across the country near me and we went to college together and were together for about 5 years. She discovered MMORPGs and never turned back. I got into it as well (grudgingly grinding in Lineage), but I grew tired of it but she didn't. She was consumed with it. Ironically, similar mediums through which our relationship had start was a key part in our end.
At least I don't have to listen to that god damn annoying game-speak anymore...
My main beef, really, is against large, expensive, fantastical weddings. If people wanna elope, I'm all for it.
But never make the mistake of thinking that marriage is an institution based on love. It is, has been, and always will be steeped in laws and legality.
There is a time and place for emotions - life certainly would be empty without them. However, I do not believe that making lifelong legal commitment decisions is one of those times or places. Love is an emotion, and it is a relevant consideration, but it is not itself a source of knowledge, truth, or wisdom.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
By your logic, you are against transportation by any automobile only because someone bought a $200,000 Ferrari.
What a sad and stupid life you must lead.
I met my boyfriends partially via online gaming. I knew them in other online contexts, but it was on a MUCK they started that things really began to happen. Things are going well but we're not at the point of marriage quite yet, either ceremonial or legal - the former probably being more likely than the latter, as America has this silly issue with families made of more than two consenting adults.
egypt urnash minimal art.
We were both working on an RP-centric MUD (I as programmer, her as lead builder), when we met.
It started as one of my friends asking "What do you want for your birthday?" and I replied "To meet a girl who likes science fiction." Turns out she was online and listening to the chat at that moment...
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
My wife once dated someone she met online- it was one of the stupidest things she's ever done. However, if she had met and dated him offline, it wouldn't have been any smarter. A few of my other friends have "dated" people they met online- but the relationship rarely survived a single real life meeting, if they got that far. An unamed friend of mine brought a online date home once- only to have his date hit on his roommate the entire visit. Not surprisingly, that ended things rather quickly. Like offline dating, online dating is more likely to end badly than end well. It's just easier to tell whether or not things will go well if you are actually able to be with the person instead of merely talking to them.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
One month ago today (Valentines day), I had a double match with my girlfriend, and we've spent almost every day since then together, or at least talking. It was pretty random, but it worked, and we're a pretty good match.
I've also built some very close friendships with people I've never met or even talked on the phone with, on chatrooms.
no comment
"Love is an emotion, and it is a relevant consideration, but it is not itself a source of knowledge, truth, or wisdom."
You sure know how to keep those sweet nothings coming, don't you Vulcan boy? I'm not going to argue with someone who is quite clearly living in terror, especially if that is what makes you happy. I'll just say that I'm quite happy in my marriage, and clearly you wouldn't be happy in one. Live long and prosper, however your boat gets floated.
Sig under construction since 1998.
What makes you think I am living in terror? I would argue that, if anything, deliberately blinding oneself to the cold reality of facts indicates terror.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
It was back on a MMORPG precursor -- a MUD -- and have been happily together for 8 or 9 years now.
We currently play WoW together, and are the leaders of a medium sized casual guild. We're not an oddity either. Unless we just attract married couples, we have 5 other husband/wifes that are in our guild. That's 12 people out of probably 35 folks that are married and game together. At least two of those other pairs met on an online game. We also have another pair that met in WoW and are currently dating.
I don't agree with the arguments that some others have posted that people don't act like themselves in games, and thus it's a bad way to meet people. Granted, there is use of the game as an escape mechnism, to get away from real life and do things you can't do or wouldn't do in person.
The thing is, you belong to a community. In smaller settings, such as smaller guilds, or a friendlist of people you commonly group with, the real you comes out. You talk about your day. You perform small acts of kindness, whether it's passing on the uber robes to your friend, or lending some gold, or helping with a quest. You tell jokes.
Yes, you can still be the sneaky deceitful rogue in groups with random strangers, or be a berserking, rampaging warrior screaming defiance as you wade through slashing up the fields of the opposing faction on the battlefield, but within the smaller setting of your guild, or your group, or your friends, you ARE yourself.
Yes, there is still the possibility of deceipt. You could act like something you're not in order to lure or attract the interest of someone else. But that exists in real life. You might modify your behavior in order to better fit in with the crowd, or wear a mask that makes you seem something you aren't, but that too exists in real life.
My point is that I think MMORPGs very closely mirror the way people act in real life. It all just varies with the context. You're a nice guy, sure, but when anonymous, I'm sure you've done not nice things. Safe with the anonymity of just another car in a busy traffic jam? You've probably flipped someone off or called them a dirty word, when you'd never do the same when your family or boss was with you.
One word ppl: E-Harmony
Check it out. Far less of a crap-shoot than meeting someone through a game.
Seriously.
So my friend was a pretty good Halo player. Good enough to win some local competitions. One night, his roommate's sister showed up with some of her friends. My friend and his roommate were playing, and after the round ended one of the girls asked if she could play against my friend. He patronizingly said, "Sure? You know how to play?"
"Well, it's been a while, but the controls should come back to me."
"Okay, I'll go easy on you for a bit."
Big mistake. I heard from everyone else in the room that by the time he hit 10 frags, she was already over 50.
Six months later they got married. He can usually win in Warcraft, but she still hands him his ass in any FPS.
About 7 years ago, I moved back to Los Angeles for work. My brother was going to law school in downtown L.A., so we decided to share an apartment.
A week after he moved in, he complained that we only had one phone line and that I would be tying up the phone line to dial in to work. I tried to calm him down with the fact that I was going to get a cablemodem service and that we'd have a 24x7 fast connection... To which he sarcasticall said something like "oh, so that you can find a woman online... well, she's actually going to be some bald guy named Bob..."
When the cablemodem arrived, I reconfigured his laptop so that he could use his AOL account via broadband... Less than two weeks later, I barely saw him because he would march straight into his bedroom after getting home and start typing away...
About two months later, he says: "Uhm, there are some ladies visiting LA from San Francisco - can they crash at our place?" It turned out that he made friends with female law students in one of AOL's chatrooms. And from many late-night chat sessions (first about law, and then about "stuff", and then more and more personal interactions), they went on to phone calls, and then dating.
Anyway, long story short, they got engaged about 3 years later. Whenever anyone asked, they said that they met through a mutual friend. Only a few of us knew the real story behind their introduction. For the wedding reception, my sister-in-law-to-be demanded that I do NOT tell the audience on how they met... Being a good brother-in-law-to-be, I demurred.
But my brother's best friend had a few of us nearly rolling on the floor when he gave a long toast to the newlyweds. He declared that their marriage was possible because of an Abundance Of Love... And then went on for five minutes on many examples of AOL bringing them together!
The two of them are very well suited to each other. It's almost scary how well matched they are. If it wasn't for the online connection, they probably would never have met. It worked for them!
I'm quite clear on the reality, having been divorced once (and won sole custody of my son and garnered zero financial or other obligations due to my divorce). You on the other hand have convinced yourself of the terrible plight of a male who marries. It is a plight that can be avoided by arranging things prior to the marrage properly. No, I'm not afraid: I faced the situation and came out victorious. You, on the other hand, appear afraid to try, which is the worst type of fear.
Sig under construction since 1998.
It's just another medium for people to come together socially, on a par with bars, clubs, personal ads, churches, parties, or any of the other myriad ways in which people meet and end up pursuing romance. Unlike those media, it comes with a bandwidth limitation on your personal interaction: you miss out on a lot of the non-verbal elements of communication. This isn't a problem if you're aware of it. But you get a lot of poor saps who mistake this throttling of bandwidth for an increased level of intimacy, leading to the many stories of disappointment resulting from meeting the online flame in real life.
I met my girlfriend 12 years ago on a talker. We ended up going our separate ways (romantically; we stayed friends for a while) because neither of us felt that we were good enough for the other, and we both ended up in marriages that ended badly. Through a few twists of fate, we ended up back in contact, started dating, and have been living together for just over a year now. It's taken the last 3+ years to turn the idealized images we had of each other back when we first met into real images of each other, images that we've both gladly decided that we can live with.
That pattern is the exception. Most relationships that start online involve people who think that they're seeing the "true" self of the other, since online communication can strip away a lot of facades. But the facades that we put on are part of who we are as well...take that away, and you're missing out on the complete person. And it's the complete person that you'll end up trying to make a life together with, not their online presence.
We can believe in you for 3 minutes, but beyond that, even the King of All Cosmos can't be expected to wait.
I was playing City of Villains when my girlfriend came home from the supermarket and asked me to help her putting groceries into the fridge... and then I found a Nintendo DS in the bottom of her bag =D
Nothing new here, nothing to see. Move along.
http://www.okcupid.com/profile?tuid=12079750184124 94804
http://amliebsch.yafro.com/profile
Dude, you need to know that even if you choose different user names (which shows at least some geek cred) for different systems, *don't* link them.
Geeze.
Sig under construction since 1998.
My main beef, really, is against large, expensive, fantastical weddings. If people wanna elope, I'm all for it.
No argument here.
People could get married like they do in France or Denmark, a small civil wedding, a nice meal at home with friends and family, and then use the money they would have spent on these insane weddings Americans do to buy a new house together, or get the down payment on one.
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Well, if that belief makes you happy, I won't disabuse you of it.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
My wife and I met on IRC around 10 years ago. We've been together for 7 years, and married for 3. We also have a 4 month old son. I'd say things turned out pretty well.
Don Head
UNIX/Linux Administrator
I swore I'd never get married, who needs the complications if you break up? Then I realised it made no difference. I eventually got married a few years later, for the extra commitment factor & to provide a slightly more "normal" family for my upcoming children. 12 years on, no regrets.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
No, no, no. Because resorting to singles sites is hysterical.
Sig under construction since 1998.
We'd love to hear about your online engagement stories, too.
_ story
Post them here at the AppleBride wedding encyclopedia (like wikipedia):
http://www.applebride.com/pages/Online_engagement
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