Don't Dismiss Online Relationships As Fantasy 357
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."
Happily Everquest After (Score:5, Interesting)
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..."
Re:MMORPGs (Score:2, Interesting)
Being a recovering wow Addict, and Having spent nearly the whole of it's release period playing it (310 days played, total) I can say with utmost certainty that you develop real relationships with the players you've known for so much time. it cannot be avoided. if you avoid it, the game just won't consume 300 days of your time. Even now, having quit the game (I no longer PLAY it) I still maintain an account, not to attend raids or do dungeons, but simply to log on and chat with friends who know me so well.
My Wife and I met on #php (Score:5, Interesting)
Friendship can be real. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now. Relationships are another matter. Relationships need an element of physical proximity. They fall apart anyway. I wouldn't feel comfortable in an online relationship. Long distance relationships generally don't work out even when its telephone conversations.
Re:Real? (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Real? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just like any relationships in life, sometimes it's a disaster and sometimes it's great.
Matter of Definition (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Online = offline (at least socially) (Score:3, Interesting)
However, during the last decade or so, games have developed an entirely new facet: social structure. Be it World of Warcraft or Second Life (is that even a game? I can't decide), people are getting deeply involved not only with the game itself but with each other, albeit in a virtual world. One might even say that actually playing the game is less important than being socially active in its context.
When social interactions become a part of the picture, changes occur in the balance between gaming and living. There separation between the game world and the real world begins to blur and fade as players make connections between game-world and real-world values. We have already seen people defining their real-life life by their in-game personas, businesses, and achievements. And this may be a problem. Maybe it's not very apparent now, but this kind of game is a relatively new phenomenon.
If a person forms a relationship in Second Life (for instance), there are bound to be more than virtual feelings involved. This is fundamentally different from being, say, a GTA addict. In GTA, one can be a car-stealin', cop-beatin' badass, and still be a loving family member (assuming that person can tell one world from the other).
A player's character would not start a virtual relationship with another player's ditto unless there is some emotional bond between the players themselves. One would have to be particularly schizophrenic (that's a joke) or an unnaturally good role player to claim that there is no conflict of interest between having a real-life relationship with one person and having an online romance with another. It would take a very well-spoken husband to convince his wife that he is happily married.
More and more, your online persona is a reflection and augmentation of your actual self. And yes, this is the case even if your online persona is Batman or GothGirl -- however radically different from your physical appearance, it's still a form of self-realization. Unless you're seriously schizophrenic (again with the humour...).
The old mantra that "on the Internet, nobody know you're a dog" is being obsoleted. Perhaps it should be replaced by "if you die in the game, you die for real" (what movie is that from again?). My point is that as games become ever more social, they're not just games anymore. Online romances equal emotional unfaithfulness and should be taken seriously.
my sister married a guy from the net (Score:3, Interesting)
They've been married for almost 10 years now, and are doing just fine.
If it works - it works - nothing wrong with it. Lord knows it's better than going to Yente the Matchmaker...
Hodel, oh Hodel,
Have I made a match for you!
He's handsome, he's young!
Alright, he's 62.
But he's a nice man, a good catch, true?
True.
I promise you'll be happy,
And even if you're not,
There's more to life than that---
Don't ask me what.
Chava, I found him.
Won't you be a lucky bride!
He's handsome, he's tall,
That is from side to side.
But he's a nice man, a good catch, right?
Right.
You heard he has a temper.
He'll beat you every night,
But only when he's sober,
So you're alright.
Did you think you'd get a prince?
Well I do the best I can.
With no dowry, no money, no family background
Be glad you got a man!
Brrrrr. Between Yente, and the millions of Arranged Marriages that go down Every Single Year to this present day, and the resulting resentment and far-too-common acts of violence [wikipedia.org], I think if people can find love in this hypersexualised culture it doesn't really matter what medium it takes to make that connection.
One of my very best friends met his wife through an advertisement in one of those cheezy urban free weekly newspaper. (SWM seeks SF, etc.) 14 years later - they're still fine and loving, with two adorable kids.
So it doesn't matter: SWM ISO SWF, OKCUPID.COM, or alt.tasteless - love is good where-ever you find it - as long as it is true.
RS
The ups and downs of online relationships (Score:4, Interesting)
I've played World of Warcraft for the last year and a half or so and when that many people come together it's only natural that some of them develop relationships. Sometimes these things turn out really good and the people actually start seeing each other in real life if they're physically close enough to do so. I don't know if it's happened on the server I've played on, but I have heard of people getting married after meeting in an online game after e-dating for a while and eventually getting to know each other better in real life.
Of course there are also the horror stories of online dating as well. I've seen relationships that haven't worked out and it makes some people bitter. There have been people kicked from guilds or guilds that have been broken up over the drama caused by some online relationships. The worst (and perhaps the funniest) thing I've ever seen is when two people who were e-dating on our server broke up and the girl posted some pictures of the guy posing naked in front of a webcam for her. The thread managed to last overnight before the GM's removed it, but a substantial portion of the server got to see a guy grabbing his junk and trying to strike a sexy pose.
One of my friends had a younger brother who met someone online and recently moved to live with them on the east coast after visiting and having a good time. I think there are a lot of people who scoff the idea of online relationships, but with the technology we have in the world today, I think they can be a good thing. Of course when the people in them don't act intelligently they can turn out bad and people you know see you wearing nothing but a smile on the internet.
Identity theft...of sorts (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:living in the real world (Score:2, Interesting)
When you're playing a MMORPG, you are entering another world. You are surrendering you perceptions to the "matrix" in a sense, but that world can only be interacted through with sight and sound.
Here's where one gets lost. So much brain power must be expended to compensate for the lack of touch, smell and taste, that unless a player focuses all attention, they cut off the real-world connection. As far as the player is concerned, everything is real. The interactions are real. When I'm distracted and talking on the phone with my wife, she can tell. The same goes for the online world. Unless you fully commit to the medium, the party you are communicating with will be able to tell your aren't really "there".
Re:Real? (Score:4, Interesting)
IMO, that is always the case. No matter how you interact and how long you have known a person,
you will never know them completely.
I find interacting with people through "poor" media like IRC usually reveals a lot that interacting through "rich" media (like actual face to face conversation) would keep hidden. I think it is because these media _force_ people to realize that the other person can't read your mind and can misunderstand you.
Re:Happily Everquest After (Score:3, Interesting)
But Everquest you could call raiding a wedding party "purposefully destroying the fun of others", or part of the fantasy role playing game where this sort of behavior should be expected, and planned for.
And if not, why would it be more or less ridicolous if the players use online avatars rather than their own physical bodies ?
Re:Real? (Score:3, Interesting)
I respectfully disagree.
While I understand your intentions, I've found online communication to be an excellent way to cut through BS and really get to know someone. Gone are insecurities about looks, shyness, and other such nonsense. Also eliminated is the abysmal dating experience where you basically spend the night being critiqued. Did you hold open the door? Did you stand too close? Not close enough? You make HOW MUCH for a living? Rather than face these typical, and often uncomfortable situations, you can simply talk with someone and really get to know who they are on the inside. All jokes aside, that's really what matters.
I met my first love that way. And yes, contrary to your beliefs, emotion did enter into it long before I met her in person. I got to know who she was better than I ever could have by getting drunk with her at a party; I spent time talking with her, learning her past, learning what she wanted in the future, and from there a true bond was formed. That, believe it or not, was how I fell in love with her. ...her being insanely cute in RL was just a bonus.
Scary thing is, the same thing seems to be happening again. I recently met up with a girl I've chatted with for years, and it was strange how comfortable we felt meeting for the first time. It was as though we'd known each other all along. The reason? We did. We came to know each other through IM, phone calls, email, etc. Maybe we're not madly in love, but there's definitely something there. And now that we're starting to hang out in real life, we don't even have to worry about getting to know each other or sizing each other up--we're already way past that. In fact, thanks to a lot of IMs, we never even went through it.
Re:All relationships are a fantasy (Score:4, Interesting)
What about making plans to move to another country to live with them after you find out how compatible and perfect you are for each other, all because you decided to roleplay textually online and discover each other's desires?
You can indeed be intimate online. It can tell you a lot about the other person, sexually and emotionally.
Don't dismiss what you haven't tried.
Re:All relationships are a fantasy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:All relationships are a fantasy (Score:3, Interesting)
If anyone wants a serious example. (Score:3, Interesting)
We met nearly 3 years ago and for a while we just sorta hung out together as friends. Over the course of the past year, though, we started getting serious about being more than just buddies. We were spending every available waking moment talking to each other online.
Here's the twist though. I'm 26 and I thought she was 20. It turns out that she misrepresented her age by about 7 years. So in reality she is a 13 year old girl still in Jr. High. She told me the truth not long ago and backed it up with more than enough proof to show that she was now being honest with me. Shortly after that, about 2 weeks, her dad figured out why she was spending so much time online and revoked her online privileges.
So here I am trying to reconcile the thoughts in my head. I worry about how much damage I might have unknowingly done to her emotionally. But I also know that I enjoyed the time I spent talking with her and at present I miss her terribly. I was depressed to the point of not being able to function for the first couple weeks after her dad let her say goodbye. Currently I'm still depressed and lonely but I've at least recovered enough to put on a false face at work.
Now I'm trying to decide between waiting for her or trying to move on. Neither option is appealing. And yes I probably do need real therapy but you guys are way cheaper.