Blair and Dan
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| Dan, 22, and Blair, 21, met through World of Warcraft |
They explained to me that people you meet through the game are often people you regard as good friends. They had mutual good friends on WoW who introduced them via a three-way call on Skype. Joint game play allowed them to get to know each other and for their relationship to blossom.
There are full social circles out there online, friends who have not met in person, but regard each other as close companions, so meeting someone special is something that came naturally for Blair and Dan, although unexpected. Dan said: "I never expected to meet anyone like Blair or even make any new friends (on WoW).
"I started playing World of Warcraft when I saw my brother playing it. At that time in my life, I lived in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't go out and play with my friends, because I didn't have any friends near me. So when I wanted a social life, I played World of Warcraft."
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| Dan (left) and Blair's (right) WoW characters |
"So if you're looking for a romantic relationship I think it's a good place to meet people. You get to know someone's personality before you even look at them. Instead of thinking someone is hot, you think 'this person is really interesting, I want to get to know them better'".
Dan went on to say: "Just because you play a different character online, doesn't mean you can't be yourself."
Blair and Dan have been together for two years, but only met in person months after they started seeing each other. Dan said: "We were talking for over eight hours a day from the moment we met. To me it was seamless. I was talking to Blair on Skype one day, and she was here the next."
The couple are clearly happy, but do they still play WoW? Blair said: "Even though we don't play it all the time, it is still a big thing in our relationship."
Meeting new people is great, but remember to always keep safe online.
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Asyraf and Emillia
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| Asyraf and Emilia met through Habbo Hotel © Singapore Seen |
Emillia first saw her now husband, Asyraf, in a hotel. No, not the kind of hotel that first comes to mind. This hotel is a virtual hotel, and the basis for the massive multi-player online game (MMOG) that is 'Habbo Hotel'.
After spying him online, Emillia told Singapore Seen that she would always wait for Asyraf to come online. She said: "I really liked the way he was; how he never failed to make me happy every time I 'saw' him online, especially all the nights he would chat with me."
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| Emilia and Asyraf's Habbo avatars © Singapore Seen |
The couple from Singapore soon became emotionally attached. Emillia said: "It felt like I had known him for years. I was speechless when he declared he liked me."
A while after, the couple spoke on the phone for the first time and arranged to meet. A few dates down the line and schoolgirl at the time, Emillia, had to face the challenge of introducing Asyraf to her Mother, who distrusted the idea of meeting someone online.
It took years to convince her mother that their relationship was legitimate and it would not interfere with her studies. Emillia said: "Ultimately, one fine day, my mum gave us her blessings and accepted him."
After 7 years of being together, Asyraf proposed in true technological style, by SMS.
The couple were married on the 19th of October, also Emilia's birthday, 2013.
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Marie and Jay
Marie Coulbeck, 46, met her husband, Jay, 43, of four years on the game IMVU. A lonely Marie said she used the MMOG (Massive Multiplayer Online Game) because she lacked in self confidence and enjoyed speaking to different people.
A usually very cautious Marie started chatting to Jay and felt enamoured straight away. She said: "I am usually very cautious, I'm a very good judge of character and I don't trust easily. It was different with Jay, as soon as we started chatting I knew he was my soulmate."
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| Happily married: Marie and Jay on their wedding day |
Marie thought that Jay was the one for her before even seeing a photograph. She said: "We got to know each other through just words."
The couple met after just a month of speaking and were engaged after a week of meeting for the first time. Marie added: "He came to visit me and he never went home!"
Marie had felt pressured to find someone after taunts from her next-door neighbour, who gave her the push to meet Jay in person. She said: "My neighbor, who is 60-odd, said that I would end up like her if I didn't meet someone. That's what made me agree to meet up with him."
Four years down the line and Marie insists they are very happily married and she no longer feels the need to play the game.
Esther and Helmut
Esther Gabrielle Kruikemeijer and her husband Helmut Hutterer met through World of Warcraft. After being unable to meet in person, Esther and Helmut answered some of my questions online. Here's what they said: |
| Real Life Love: Esther and Helmut on Their Wedding Day |
ESTHER
S.C.: How did you meet? What is your story?
E.K.: Well, I was walking around in Westfall, an area in World of Warcraft, with my Night Elf Druid Gabrielle when I discovered a group of other players near a farm. Because I was a bit too low level to quest there on my own I asked if I could join their party. There was one Nightelf Hunter called Tofukiller among them, who started to dance around me and blow kisses towards me in the air. I remember thinking he was very amusing :). The other players were friendly as well, so we kept on playing together. The following evening I did my first dungeon (The Dead Mines) with them. Tofukiller was not online, but the next day we repeated that same dungeon again together, which was great fun. It was then that I was asked to join their guild called StarRock, which almost completely existed of Rockstar Games Vienna working-colleagues. Tofukiller and I started playing together on a daily basis. While playing we got to know the real persons behind the characters. Within just a couple of weeks we both found out that we were actually falling in love with each other. We were e-mailing each other, calling each other and then we planned to have a blind date in Vienna where he lived – with no photos exchanged in advance by the way! Very exciting! After that first weekend together we knew we wanted to be together. That Night Elf Hunter is now my husband and father of our daughter, Emma. Next month we will have our 9-years-of-knowing-eachother-anniversary.
S.C.: What attracted you to World of Warcraft?
E.K.: Computer games and such never interested me. Out of boredom I only played Tetris or Hearts and that was it. When I saw World of Warcraft though, I was immediately sold. The world and the characters looked so beautiful and I totally liked the idea of playing together with other people. WoW also has a lot of humor in it, which makes it so much fun! Every character in the game has the potential to look amazingly cool, cute or silly. You do a silly dance, you can create crazy looking gear and show off with it and there are annual events such as Valentine’s Day or Christmas where you can do fun quests, get nice rewards, start a snow ball fight, etc. I love that!
S.C.: Did you ever think romance would blossom?
E.K.: No, not in a million years. Apart from being in an relationship at the time I did not even consider the possibility of really getting to know people and develop friendships. But both happened. Apart from meeting my big love I also gained a couple of good friends and acquaintances, some of whom I have also met in the real world.
S.C.: Would you encourage other people to use gaming as a way of meeting people?
E.K.: For almost a year now I have been working part-time for an Austrian online dating platform for singles. I have heard quite some stories from people who got very disappointed because the people they met there did not turn out to be the people they thought they would be. They see a profile of someone they like, they start chatting and mailing a bit, maybe exchange more photos, call each other and then they meet for a drink or so. First of all it usually all goes quite fast and second of all many people truthfully only want to have a sexual adventure and are not single at all. Not to mention all the fake profiles of people who are really prostitutes or frauds trying to get money from innocent victims.
When you play together with someone in an online game, you automatically get lots of information you would not get that easily when meeting someone on a dating site. You experience firsthand if someone is cooperative or not, if someone is helpful or selfish, if someone is intelligent, reckless, has a sense of humor, you name it. You get to know someone’s social skills. And that by the way is something I really want to stress: it is a big mistake to think that people who play these games lack social skills, because you need them. Some may be shy in the real world, but within the safe environment of a virtual world they can be very social indeed.
So my answer to your question is yes. I honestly believe it is a very good way to get to know someone. Of course it brings different difficulties, like when someone lives in another state or country. This forces you though to really think things through. If your love is strong enough and if you prepare meeting each other in the real world properly, it is truly the experience of a lifetime.
S.C.: What would your advice be?
E.K.: First of all you need to be completely open and honest with each other: what are your expectations, what do you do when the spark is not there when you meet for real? We for instance decided that I would stay at his place no matter what. If we would not connect romantically, I would sleep on the couch, he’d simply show me Vienna and we’d have a fun time as friends. I could also have checked a hotel nearby just in case, but I trusted my gut feeling.
Next thing is to inform someone - a friend, a family member - with whom you will be (name plus telephone number) and where exactly you will be (address). If you have already spoken with the person on the phone or have used a webcam, you can be quite sure the person is who he/she says he is. But to be on the safe side I highly recommend informing someone back home any way. And when things get serious, maybe consider going on a holiday to see what it is like to be together for a longer period of time.
If all has worked out and the decision is made to want to be together, you need to start talking about who is moving to whom, job chances, your financial situation, validation of your degrees, language, and last but not least the fact of leaving family, friends and maybe also a good career behind, for one of you will be starting all over again. It is very exciting and adventurous, but also a very big step with lots of consequences that should not be overlooked.
S.C.: Is there anything you would change?
E.K.: In my case it turned out to be more difficult than expected to find a proper job in Vienna. After eight years I am still struggling with it. In retrospect I would probably invest more time in advance researching and estimating my job chances.
S.C.: Was it romantic? Do you think it is romantic?
E.K.: It was extremely romantic, in a very strange way.Our characters went to the beach together, we swam together, showed each other beautiful places we had discovered, chatted for hours and hours. We tried to position our characters as closely as possible so that it looked like they were cuddling or sleeping next to each other. It is quite funny what you come up with to have a sense of intimacy with so little means. But the weird thing is that it works, and that is the mystery about it. I will never fully comprehend how it is possible to develop such strong feelings for someone I could not see, hear, smell or feel...
S.C.: Have you heard of many couples meeting this way? Is it becoming more common or is it unconventional?
E.K.: You'd have to define many. When I first started MMO COUPLES I received quite a few stories, but in the last couple of years it is a lot if I find 2 to 3 new love stories per year in my mailbox. I mostly get e-mails from people who are still in the middle of courting and are in need of advice.
I suspect people are more open to the idea that one could find friendship and even love in a MMO, but it still remains a very big step to take the online flirt into real world. Not many people are willing to take that risk.
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| Esther and Helmut's World of Warcraft Avatars |
HELMUT
H.H.: I've been developing games since 2001 with the last fours years focusing on online browser and mobile games. The last two games we released with my company Socialspiel where social MMOG experiences. The next game we plan on doing will be more of a core game experience with some online features. I have not worked on an MMOG with a persistent world like a World of Warcraft or Guild Wars.
S.C.: Before your experience, did you think that MMOGs were a possible place to meet a partner?
H.H.: Well, I heard some stories that these things happen but I never gave it much thought to be honest. I knew from experience that it's possible to make friends in online games and that these friendships can translate into the real world as well. Falling in love with a person you only know as an avatar in a virtual world where your interaction possibilities are quite limited still feels like a mystery to me. My wife and I still talk about it from time to time and we both can't really explain how this happened.
S.C.: Do you think people are using games as a place to meet people romantically? If so, do you think there has been a particular increase?
H.H.: I don't think meeting people romantically drives people to play those games. For some players though, socializing with other players can be one of the reasons why they pick certain games or game genres. I'd even go so far to say that it's the other way round. For example MMORPGs often foster or even create interesting and meaningful interactions between players which then leads to friendship which can lead to more. When playing online multiplayer games or any type of games where you interact with real people you can learn a whole lot about the person behind the player. When people are totally immersed in a game they tend to show their real self or at least parts of it. You experience what makes them laugh, what frustrates them or how ambitious they are. I think there is a lot of honesty there, probably more than on a first date in some bar.
S.C.: Do you think there is a certain type of MMOG that attracts this? Any examples and why?
H.H.: There are some virtual worlds with the main purpose of dating and online flirting. I don't really know much about them though. I would not call them online games and I don't think it's a comparable experience to a MMOG. Initially you play a game because you want to have fun and a good time playing rather than getting a date out of it.
I think MMOGs with a focus on cooperative and social gameplay features provide a higher chance of players falling in love, but that's just my assumption. It would be interesting to see some data, but I guess there is little to non research done in that field.
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