The Online Romantics: Meet the Gamers Bringing Romance Back to Online Dating

So, four months down the line and it is finally finished. After lots of research and speaking with some amazing people, this is my main piece on those true online romantics.



I'd love to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way, with special thanks to:

Blair Kenney
Dan Bennett
Esther Gabrielle Kruikemeijer
Helmut Hutterer
Marie Coulbeck
Roxy Watson
Arthur Cassidy
Fiona Walker
Sarah Finnegan
Diana Flores Pankhania 

If you would like to see my full project, click here.

Q&A with 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.

Esther and Helmut's World of Warcraft Avatars

HELMUT

S.C.:How long have you been working with online games? Have you worked with MMOGs?

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.

Has Online Dating Killed Romance?

Here is the full debate between three daters about whether online dating websites have killed romance. I wanted to get the opinion of three people no stranger to the dating scene, with two still looking for love and one having found it. I wanted a balanced point of view, with one online success story, one unsuccessful online dater and one online dater skeptic.

So, we have George Heslop, who is 27. George is an intern at Snapper music and met his current girlfriend online using an online dating website related to musical taste.

 
This is Jill Taylor, 51-year-old mum of two, shop manager and online dating phobe. Jill is sceptic to the ways of online dating and says that if she could "live in the days of Jane Austen", she would.

Amanda Reuben is 48, owns her own business and among a busy family life, has found it hard to find the right person. Not a stranger to the online dating world, Amanda has had a long-term relationship through meeting someone online, but is once again single.


 

World of Warcraft: My First Time

This was my first experience with online gaming and I found World of Warcraft to be a pretty friendly place. With social calenders and the ability to flirt, dance and have fun with other avatars, I can see how people find it a good way to socialise.

IMVU Love: Marie and Jay Coulbeck

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."

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.

Second Life: My Second Experience

Unfortunately my Second Life avatar hasn't seen much action recently, so I thought it high time I went back and visited my lonely animated self.

Second Life is very different to Habbo and WoW, it is very sexual and a lot of the conversation revolves around sex. Not all of it, but a lot. The women are often under dressed and the men, tall and muscular.

This woman was being controlled by a chain

There is a pretty misogynistic set up; I even witnessed one scantily clad female chained to a man. Most of the conversations can't even be repeated as the language used was pretty explicit.

What I have learned is that there are definitely people playing Second Life with something else on their mind, I'm just not so sure it is love. There doesn't seem to be as many social boundaries as World of Warcraft and Habbo and users make it pretty obvious they're there for sexual gratification over anything else.

That's not to say that that is all Second Life is for. It depends what setting you're in, and by chance the setting today was filled with pole dancing, nearly naked women, dirty talking and kinky men.

I want to get past this part of Second Life and see if there are other reasons people are here. There are countless places to visit and I am intrigued to see what's in store next.

Meeting people can be a really exciting time- but always remember to keep safe online.

No Likey, No Lighty: My Second Habbo Experience

Today it was about time I delved in to the virtual brick walls of the never-ending hotel once again. Of course, I am referring to Habbo. This time I think I had a better grasp of how to navigate through the countless rooms and actually managed to stumble upon a right gem..

Habbo has the great feature of users being able to create their own rooms, with one, I am assuming British, user creating a room based on a much beloved dating TV show. If you haven't guessed by the title of this post, it's Take Me Out! So there ARE Habbo-ers out there looking for love.. and lots of them!

Lonely Habbo-ers looking for love in the Take Me Out room

Not quite like the original format, female users sit in a long line of chairs until a new bachelor walks in (they all patiently wait in line for the chance, as do the women, who wait for a chair).  The women stand up if they like the look of the guy, and then the guy ever so politely goes over to all of the women he doesn't like and asks them to 'sit down'.  Hilarious!

Waiting patiently in line for a chance to play Take Me Out

The lucky last two ladies get the opportunity to answer a question, upon which, the bachelor picks his favorite and it all starts again. I wonder if any will be jetting off to the Isle of Fernandos?

I am still getting to grips with the social dos and don'ts, but from what I found today, there are users from across the globe openly looking for relationships, albeit virtual ones. I'm yet to see whether many want these to go beyond Habbo and I can't wait to find out.

Meeting new people can be lots of fun, but please remember to keep safe online.