Don't Dismiss Online Relationships As Fantasy

Columnist Regina Lynn has a look at how online relationships seem to be blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. "The common thread among these stories is that people get deeply involved in online relationships and make decisions about their real lives. Calling any of these online relationships 'fantasy' dismisses the impact they have on the people involved and on those closest to them... I have yet to encounter anything that challenges my core belief: Relationships are real wherever they form."

Comments

Happily Everquest After

[ExE122]

This reminds me of a hilarious story a friend of mine told me about his Everquest days...

Apparently a group of players decided they're gonna have two of their friends get married in the game, complete with ceremony. I mean they were really serious about this! They apparently sent out invitations and got all worked up over it like it was real.

Unfortunately, upon hearing this, my friend built up an army of warriors to pay a visit to this little event. As the bride and groom exchanged vows, they charged in like Lancelot and began their slaughter. A paralyze spell was used on the bride who was then carried off onto a boat. The groom was hacked to bits and the rest of the wedding party was killed off as the bride and her captor sailed off into the sunset.

Now I have to ask myself this: Do those people have a right to be upset that their "wedding" was so rudely interrupted? Or did this serve as a healthy eye-opener to the ludicracy of the situation and a much needed return to reality for all persons involved?

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that while I believe these online relationships may indeed be very strong, there comes a point where you're just going taking this "fantasy" too far. There comes a point where you have to face reality, not escape it. Otherwise we will lose our ability to deal with problems in the real world.

Caller: "When his pet hamster died he yelled, 'Mommy, mommy, where's the reset button?' Lazlo, life does not have a reset button." Lazlo: "But this radio show does! -click- I love that button..."

My Wife and I met on #php

[thenextpresident]

We met back in 2001 on what now is FreeNode's #php channel. This past summer, we finally tied the knot. I ended up moving up to be with here (I was living in Pennsylvania at the time. She was living in Montreal). We are happily married, and have been a happy couple ever since we first started being a couple. Both of us are absolutely thrilled at the way we met. I've also developed a rather one-sided opinion that programming chat rooms are great places to pick up chicks. =)

Re:Real?

[garcia]

Relationships are only as real as the people in them. If the person is pretending to be something their not, even by a little bit, that can be greatly magnified online. As long as the relationship STAYS online, it's fine... But meeting the person in real life can be a disaster.

I consider it to be like reading a book and then watching the movie. Regardless of the level truth put forth by the other person I always draw a different mental image of the person and their behavior. When I meet them in person it's always different than what my mental image of them was.

I do my best to act just as I would in real life online as I do anywhere else and I really hope that the other person does too. At least when people meet me they already know I'm a fucking foul mouthed asshole. The rest of me is just gravy ;)

Matter of Definition

[RAMMS EIN]

``Relationships are real wherever they form.''

That sounds like it wasn't what you expected. Apparently,
people have some idea that relationships should only
developed through normal means, for some definition of normal.

And there, I said the magic word: definition. What is the
definition of relationship? When is a relationship real? What
means are normal?

My feeling is that this is going to be similar to the question
whether machines can think. Some people define thinking in a way
that machines can't possibly satisfy (usually, the argument is
exactly "if a machine does it, it's not thinking"). Other people
use definitions where thinking machines are always just around
the corner, but never actually there. And some people use
definitions by which we've had thinking machines for a long
time now.

As for relationships, I think that, no matter what your definition
of a relationship is, the (real) feelings you get from interacting
in a virtual world are about the same as those you would get if
the interaction had happened in the Real World. For me, that makes
the relationship real.

Of course, some aspects of relationships that develop in the Real World
will be missing from relationships that develop in some virtual
reality. On the other hand, there may be things in virtual reality
relationships that aren't in Real World relationships. There are
some very interesting effects here. For example, there are great
opportunities for misrepresenting and hiding things...in both virtual
and Real relationships.

Virtual reality being virtual, it also provides great opportunities for
experimentation. Some people never get past the "let's offend people
and see what happens" stage, but other people go much, much further.
Some people get married and/or have children in virtual reality, and
I think that this gives them some insight in what it
would feel like if they did the same thing in Real Life. To me, this
seems a valuable experience. And I'd much rather this experiment be
run in virtual reality with virtual children than in Real Life with
Real children.

All this is my 2 cents, of course, but those cents have been given to
me as the result of having both Real World and virtual reality
relationships, and even some that were both.

Identity theft...of sorts

[parchedhusk]

I thought I would share my little story of "online relationships". I have a profile up at a site that caters to a gay demographic, and on there I've got about like 12-13 pictures and a little blurb.
Anyway, so one day I get a message on there which read something like: "Why are you using a dead guy's pictures?". This puzzled me so I replied that in fact I'm using my own pictures. His reply to that "No, the pictures you are using are of a guy named such-and-such and he lives in [a town like 26 states over] and he recently passed away and you suck for using his pictures".
Anyway, I won't go into details here, but I offered to prove to him that I was the person in the pictures, not because I felt like any particular need to prove it, but because I felt like he needed some closure. And so we did (webcam does the trick nicely).
Anyway, then the story came out - he'd been talking to someone on craigslist of all places who posted an ad with my pictures. They got into it quite heavily (though obviously they never met), talking every day and such. Finally, when this other guy got bored of the game he invented a cyber-death and had his "sister" email the original guy to tell him that her brother is dead.
Long story short, it was interesting to examine this situation. The poor man, he seemed totally crushed. He even told me at the end that he could never really get to know me as a person, since he's tied my pictures to whatever personality the liar invented. For my part, I also felt very bad - I'd almost say guilty - even though I did nothing wrong. And I really pitied the guy - his emotions were wracked in a very real way, even though the entire thing occurred online, and even though, let's face it, he should have known better.