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)?

Comments

This is bad for the RIAA!

[Thunderstruck]

While my first reaction to this idea is that "hooking up" over the internet is somehow less preferred to doing it the old fashioned way, as more and more people I know use this method, I can't help but wonder if there really are any drawbacks.

At first, we all assume that an in-person meeting is better. How a person looks in real life is often very different from how they appear on screen. On the other hand, I'll have less hair on my head tomorrow than I did today... so perhaps looks are not as big an issue as we think.

A second question is how much you can learn about a potential mate from his online conduct. Does a willingness to bend the rules or make the lives of other players miserable translate into a person who will do the same in real life? I'd guess it probably does.

One question remains, however. A lot of our entertainment and service industries thrive on the back of the mating rituals as they presently exist. If everyone who seeks a mate eventually gravitates to the more efficient internet, will there be anyone left to talk to at the local pub? Will more movie theaters go broke for want of lovebirds who don't care what's on the screen? Will my car's back seat become even smaller? ...or are these just dinosaur industries waiting to be swept away by the new mp3-downloading....wait... wrong thread.