A few weeks ago I received this very open and personal story of friendship and love. I was re-painting the room of my daughter Emma at the time and promised that after I had finished, I would work on this blogpost. Due to a couple of unpleasant things that are happening in my life right now I had forgotten about it. But here it is, finally! Thank you for sharing, Kizna and Dilbert-Pickles!

It’s been over two years now since I first started talking to my boyfriend. At the time, I was a 25 year old recent graduate from my Master’s program in Social Work and was having a hard time finding work. The job market was not good and no matter how hard I had tried to find a job, I was either overqualified or under experienced. Every job that I applied to said the same thing. I had become pretty down on myself. I was living with a roommate who was not respectful of me and things were not going right in my life. I felt pretty depressed and I could not really talk about my feelings with my friends in real life. They were not very understanding or supportive of my troubles and felt that I had brought a lot of it onto myself. I wanted to find someone that I could talk to about my problems, who wouldn’t judge me and someone who I could get close to and become friends with.

I remembered playing this online strategy MMO called Dofus that I had really enjoyed. My character, Kizna, was pretty high leveled and a lot of fun to play. I had taken a break from the game six months previously so that I could focus on my internship and finishing my graduate program. I remembered all of the friends that I had made in the game and how much fun I had. I decided that it was time to re-subscribe and see what I had been missing. When I logged back in for the first time, I had been hoping that some of my friends from before I had left were still playing. Sadly, most of them if not all of them had stopped playing for one reason or another. I didn’t let that stop me. I remembered how much I had enjoyed the game and how much I had loved my class (I play as an Eniripsa, which are the fairy-type characters that act as the healer class in the game). A couple of months went by, I had made some new friends and was glad that I had come back, but I still felt like I hadn’t found the exact type of friendship I was looking for.

One night, a friend of mine invited me to go hunt ghosts with his guild. Ghosts were pretty hard mobs to fight and since I had not been able to fight them often, I agreed. I was invited to the group and ran all the way to the top of Pandala Island, avoiding the aggroing mobs along the way. When I got there, I had noticed that there was another character there that was not in the same guild as the others. He played an Iop (The warrior class in the game). His screen name was Tyrannic. He intrigued me right away. Most of the Iop characters I had met in the game had very similar builds. They were usually single element. Tyrannic was Omni and able to be three of the four elements by changing his set. The group had found a large ghost mob to attack and we were waiting on one other player to show up when the higher ups in their guild told them that they had found an arch ghost mob (one of the hardest mobs to beat in the game). They all left the group and joined with their guild to fight the mob, leaving me and Tyrannic alone. We both were kind of shocked and bummed about getting ditched, but we laughed it off. We moved to another map and watched the other group fight the arch while we talked together in group. I found out that he had a tactical mind, which was really impressive to me. He understood the game, how to play most of the classes and was really good at teamwork. He also wouldn’t yell out “Heal me Eni!” like most people would in the game. He respected my ability to play, just as I respected his. We met up a lot after this doing dungeon runs and hunting mobs together. I got excited every time I saw his name pop up in my chat. He started to become a normal part of my day. I definitely felt that we were friends, but there was a part of me that had realized that I was feeling something more than that.

He invited me to his TeamSpeak server after a couple of months of knowing each other. I was really nervous because I had barely spoken to anyone on the computer over voice chat before and I had never gone into a huge voice chat room type setting like that. I was never a huge fan of how I sounded and I was afraid that I might say something stupid. I really wanted to talk to him though and in the end that desire won out against my nervousness. That first night we talked for hours and hours. I went back the next day, and the next day, and the next day and so on. That’s the way it would be for the next year and a half. We exchanged pictures shortly afterward. I was again nervous about this. I am a larger girl and I worried that he wouldn’t accept me. I braced myself to potentially lose his friendship but was pleasantly surprised when he accepted me whole heartedly the way I was. We learned more and more about each other every day. He gave me the strength to pull myself out of the depressive hole I had found myself in. I tried even harder to find a job and found one with a temp agency. I was sleeping better again. I was feeling happy again. Things were good. We joked around and had fun every day. I kept learning new things about him. He was a goof, like me. He and I had a lot in common and a lot of similar interests. He encouraged me to make a guild and so we made one together. He supported my decisions and I supported his. We even got married in game to be more effective leveling partners. At one point, he made a new Sacrier character (The Tank class) named Dilbert-Pickles and we got remarried. We were always together. Some days when we talked it felt like I was fighting to get information out of him (I was much more open with stuff about myself than he was. I found out later that he was worried and anxious), but every time I got a new piece of information it felt like I had made a big step forward. I was the first person he had told his real name to online. He grew to trust me and I fell in love with his voice, the way he treated others, his humor, his personality and most importantly with him altogether.

Three months after I started talking to him on TeamSpeak I confessed my feelings for him. It took me an hour of stammering to tell him how I felt. Instead of rejecting me, he accepted my feelings and told me that he liked me too. I was ecstatic! However, he told me that we couldn’t do anything about it. He was in Michigan and I was in Maine and the distance was too far for him. He did not want to have an “internet relationship”. I deflated a bit. Instead of giving up, I thought of it as a challenge that we would have to overcome. If two people like each other, why should distance stop them from being together? Why can’t what starts as an internet relationship turn into a real life relationship? I decided then that I would find out if it was possible for us to get that happy ending.

Six or seven months after we started talking my brother passed away in a car accident. Having previously lost almost all of my family (my parents and three of my grandparents had passed away within 7 years of each other), I was no stranger to loss. However, my brother’s death had hit me slightly differently. I wasn’t expecting him to die so soon. He was 27 years old when he passed away. He and I had bonded a lot after our parents’ death and we supported each other because we were the only family that we had left. When he died, I was angry at him but mostly I felt alone. Tyrannic was there for me. He supported me. He listened when I needed to cry or vent. He even sent me flowers at work (the first flowers I had ever received from a guy). Without his support, I might have fallen back into that depressive hole I was in when I first started talking to him. He gave me the strength to move forward.
After a while, we branched out. We started to play a bunch of other games together at the same time. Mostly other MMOs, but we also played some FPS games like Borderland, or other multiplayer games like Left4Dead2. I even bought and played Resident Evil 5 with him, something new for me because survival horror games and I are not friends. I enjoyed myself, stepped out of my comfort zone and grew as an individual. I was willing to try things I never would have done before. We worked together, trying to create goals for each other – helping each other grow as individuals both in game and in the real world. He challenged me to quit drinking soda and I did. He made me feel like a better person. He told me that I made him feel the same.

From there, we had a few ups and downs. We started talking to each other on webcam. We did this a few times a week. I loved being able to actually see him. I had thrown out many suggestions about us meeting. He would say “Someday. Maybe in five years.” or we’d plan a whole trip- down to the hotel we would stay at – and then he would change his mind about it. I asked him why he kept avoiding the topic or shifting it when I brought it up. He finally admitted to me that when we first started talking to me, that he had lied to me about a few things. I had already guessed what they were at that point. They were small lies that he told to someone he didn’t think that he was going to fall for or get to know as well as he had. He wanted to tell me the truth earlier, but he was afraid that I wouldn’t talk to him anymore. He apologized. I told him that it didn’t matter and I was happy he was being truthful now. I asked him again if he would be interested in me coming out to see him. He explained to me then that he wasn’t sure if he was ready. He told me that he had some issues, mostly with anxiety and that he wanted to be better before he met me. I assured him that none of that mattered to me, but he was not assured. Those were his terms for us to meet. He said it would take time. Again, I was deflated. We had come so far, but was I just going to be spinning my wheels waiting for him? I was conflicted. I felt pulled in a few directions. What did I want? I went on a few dates in my area, but I couldn’t enjoy them for various reasons. In the end, it came down to the fact that they weren’t Tyrannic. I knew that I had to try to make our relationship work before I could move on. My friends kept telling me that I should give up on him. They told me that I was ignoring all of the red flags. They were mad because he had lied to me. They didn’t understand why I had forgiven him or why I was still talking to him. I told them that they didn’t know him like I did. Over the course of that past year he had become my best friend. I realized that my life would not be the same without him and I wanted to do everything I could to make it work between us. I just was at a loss for what to do. How do you take the next step when someone isn’t sure that they’re ready for it? The answer I found was waiting for the right moment to take the plunge.

Around the one year mark of meeting Tyrannic, I was still having trouble finding a Social Work job. I had been doing temp work for the last year and I was tired of it. The pay wasn’t very good and I felt like I was wasting my degree and my education. I felt trapped in Maine. I had discussed potentially moving a few times with others over the past couple years. I felt like I needed to leave the state to find a job, but I didn’t want to go anywhere that I didn’t know someone. I had thought a few times about moving to Michigan. I had a friend there already and Tyrannic was there too. I did not want to move there unless he was okay with it though. Our friendship was more important to me than that. One night, he came into TeamSpeak and he told me that he had spoken to his mother. She had told him that there were a lot of Social Work opportunities in Michigan. I couldn’t believe it! Was he giving me consent to move? I asked him if he was okay with me potentially moving to his state, maybe even to his town. He told me that he was, but that jobs needed to be my first focus and that he couldn’t promise me that when I got there that we could be anything more than friends. I was so excited! I agreed that we would take it slow and see where it went. We both agreed that we needed each other in our lives. He felt that we could help each other. I agreed. I did my research and checked how easy it would be to get my license in Michigan. Not having a lot of money, I knew that making this move would be risky. I planned to do it as cheap as possible. His sister had an apartment that they said I could stay in until I was able to find and afford my own place. I planned on renting a moving truck and towing my car behind it. I planned to drive the 18-19 hours all at once instead of staying in a hotel. I had never driven a vehicle so large before, but it would have cost too much for me to pay someone to drive it for me. I was really worried that I could get in an accident but I had to stay positive. I was going to be moving! I planned to move in June.

As the days got closer we talked more about my move and what it meant for us. He kept telling me the same thing – focus on jobs, not a relationship. I agreed but I couldn’t hide my excitement. He also told me that his parents were really worried about me moving. They were worried that I had never driven such a big vehicle and he and his parents had come up with an alternative plan. He would fly out with his father and they would drive the moving truck back for me while I drove with my vehicle and my two cats. They also suggested that we split the driving over three days to make sure that we were safe and not tired while we were driving half way across the country. He told me that he would pay for his and his father’s food and lodging. I would be responsible for the rest. I thought about it and checked my finances. It cost a bit more, but I could afford it. I asked him how he felt about flying out to see me and help me move. He said that he was nervous, but that he would be okay with it. I booked the tickets and we searched for hotels and booked those as well. It was set in stone.

I drove to the airport the morning that I was supposed to pick them up and bring them to my rental truck. I was nervous and excited. I was practically pacing waiting for their plane to land. I remember the feelings that I had when I first saw him walking down the steps at the airport. I was amazed to see him actually in front of me. I couldn’t stop staring at him, something I still have trouble with at times today. I was definitely nervous and we were both a little awkward for the first couple of days. Luckily, I had some time to get used to being around him as he was switching off driving my moving truck with his dad. By the second night, we were comfortable enough with each other to cuddle and we opened up with each other about our feelings for each other. It was that night that I knew that everything was going to be okay. We drove back to the apartment and he helped me unpack the moving truck. It’s been an amazing adventure ever since.

I’m happy to say that we are now officially dating and have been since I moved in June. He moved into the apartment with me this past August. His family has been really great to me since the move. They’ve accepted me and brought me into the family. It’s nice having that feeling of family again. They tell me that I was really brave for making the move. I tell them that I wasn’t brave. I just did what I needed to do to grab onto what would make me happy. We’ve been working together to fix it up our apartment and to make it a nice home for us. We’re currently taking a break from Dofus. We are playing its sister game at the moment – Wakfu. Gaming is still a large part of our lives and something we will continue to do for a long time. I’m also happy to report that I finally got that Social Work job that I had been trying to get for so long. We still have our ups and downs, but we’re continuing to help each other grow as individuals. The best part is that we now get to do it in person.

My advice to others who find themselves in a similar situation is to not give up. There may be a lot of people in your life who do not support you or think you’re strange. Only you can know what is truly right for you. You never know what will happen if you don’t try. Take the plunge when it feels right. You won’t be disappointed.

Some time ago, a young woman wrote me and asked for advice concerning a man she had met in a MMO. She promised to keep me posted on future developments. Since it had been a very long time since I had received any love stories that were not for my eyes only, I had not checked my MMO COUPLES mailbox in ages. Yesterday I decided to have a look and to my enjoyment found the following story by Aldara.

Three years ago I began playing an MMORPG called Runes of Magic because the boyfriend I had back then was playing the game. At that time we were beginning to have communication problems. Playing the game was my attempt to rekindle the communication in the relationship. Within the first six months of playing I engrossed in the game. I bought the diamonds, I took leadership positions and I wanted to be end game. I was pretty good if I may say so myself . My Elf Rogue/Mage Aldara was a Rogue/Mage pioneer as there were not many of them. Then my now ex-boyfriend and I started a small guild and slowly recruited lower level players that needed our help.

My ex recruited an Elf Druid/Scout at the name of Spitz. For the longest while, I didn’t notice him in the guild at all. He wasn’t much of a talker and just did his own thing. Soon he began to creep up on the higher levels. So as a guild we started partying together. It was nothing special, just doing an instance or two here, a quest or two there.
Then we started to do the guild PvP, Siege Wars. Again, nothing too serious, but Spitz was my personal healer during siege. We followed each other around and dominated when we came across an enemy. He was a good player at one of the hardest classes in the game and it caught my eye. Slowly we started talking about game politics: what was the next step for our guild, so on and so forth.

Eventually problems started to arise with my ex. He stopped talking to me and just wouldn’t do anything with me in real life anymore. So I started complaining. To whom? To Spitz. For a while, he just listened to me complain about no more communication, how the relationship was falling apart, how the guy treated me, etc. He kept telling me I deserved someone better, someone who would take care of me. I believed him, but for some reason I didn’t break up with the boyfriend. So Spitz and I continued on as rant buddies.

One day, I was running one of Spitz’s secondary characters through an instance when we got on vent to chat. He was never an outspoken person, so it took me a while to catch on to his accent. That’s when I noticed he had an Asian accent. In my head I was like, “Sweet! I took Chinese for 3 years. This will be fun!” I began asking him some more personal questions: where was he from, what was his name, etc., etc. This is when we legitimately started to hit it off.
For a while it went on like this. Just chatting in the game, staying in party when we on our own, just having someone to talk to. As stated before, my boyfriend and I weren’t having the greatest of communication luck and I needed someone to talk to. Of course, when you are in a situation like this, some feelings are going to appear – and that’s exactly what happened.

My ex broke up with me a few days after prom, about six months after Spitz and I had seriously started talking. Since I did not really mind the decision, it was a mutual break off. I think he knew something was going on between Spitz and I, even if it wasn’t serious. Anyway, he ended up quitting the game and moved onto a new one.

At this point my parents found out that I was talking to someone I met over a video game. Of course we had already exchanged email addresses and phone numbers, and of course I was texting him. My mom prevented me from playing any games, using my phone, my PlayStation or the computer unless she was watching over my shoulder. She had even taken my phone. I had no idea how I was going to keep talking to my Druid. It was then that every few days at school I would send one email. Just to go over what had happened, what was going on; I just wanted to stay in touch. That’s it. He was a great guy who stood by me and supported me when I ranted. He was amazing and I couldn’t bear to lose him.
Finally, my mom loosened up and gave me my phone back. I couldn’t text him, so I emailed him. All day, every day; all night, every night. He was MY someone I could always talk to and he was always there. I was seriously falling in love with him; a man on the other side of the country.

Since I was in high school, we talked every day about when we would meet. He suggested that when I would start going to college he would come to see me. That was a year and a half ago. We would count it down and keep talking about it: what would happen when we met, how awkward it would be, everything. We never got to use vent again, never got to play an MMORPG, we just talked and stood strong.

Once I went to college, the day we were to meet came closer and closer. I started playing Aion (another MMORPG) with him. It was nice to play something with him again after the year and a half wait. But the feeling of him coming to visit me was so unnerving. Every day our first meeting was getting closer, my stomach turned more and more into knots. It’s hard to imagine the feeling of finally meeting the man you have been in love with for two years… Most people don’t understand, but I do. It was the most nerve-racking thing I have ever done.

The day he came was already dramatic enough. I had to go to the hospital with my roommate because she’d broken her hand, I missed half of my classes and the thought of him coming at that point made me a nervous wreck. When my roommate drove me to the airport, I felt physically sick…
When we met I was so glad my roommate was there! She helped relieve the initial meeting awkwardness and then we were good to go. That week we stayed in a hotel down the street from my university. He was everything that I’d imagined: that kind, caring Druid that I had met on the game, but then in real life. There was that moment when I felt like I had known him forever. By the second day I felt so comfortable with him. It was the most right feeling I had ever had (if that makes sense?).

We had a great time together. We enjoyed each other’s company, we played ‘Magic: the Gathering’. It was simply fantastic. By the end of the week, we were both so sad to see each other go. As soon as the taxi took him back to the airport, I started texting him. He had just left and I missed him already…

That was two weeks ago. It feels like an eternity has gone by. We still text every day and Skype every night.
I just want everyone who is reading this to know that love comes from many places and overcomes many obstacles. People looking from the outside won’t understand it, having those romantic feelings for someone on a MMORPG. But trust me, those feelings are very real! I believe that finding someone through one of these games is one of the best ways to meet someone, because you learn about their character, morals and how they work with a group. These should be some of the biggest attributes someone wants to see in their significant other.

“I’m M. I’m 19 and live in England. I have been playing World of Warcraft on and off since I was fourteen – thanks to my sister, who got me into the game.
I first met T. just over a year ago whilst being in a raid with another guild and a guy, who at the time, was my ‘in real’ boyfriend. T. and I didn’t really talk much, but I do remember him being there.

Between then and February I had stopped playing the game and ended my emotionally unhealthy relationship with my boyfriend. I was in a dark place and had foolishly quit my job. Having nothing to do all day, I decided to start playing again. One day I was doing the daily quest for the ironically event named ”Love is in the air”. To my luck I ended up in a group with T., but I didn’t quite recognize the name at first. We started talking and developed a friendship. A week later I joined his guild. We shared pictures of each other and carried on generally talking as friends for several months. When he and girlfriend broke up, I was there to comfort him.

I don’t remember a specific moment where I realized that I liked T. more than just as a friend. But I do remember a particular time where I was in a main city in the game when we were talking about my guy problems. He sent me a whisper saying ”You would be the perfect girlfriend if you’d live in Belgium!” My heart fluttered! I was excited and happy that he had said that, unsure if it was a joke, and at the same time sad as well, as I thought that this meant he would never want me in that way because of the distance.

In May we decided to exchange Skype and Facebook details. He wasn’t playing as much anymore due to exams, so we talked a lot outside of the game and went on web cam till late. Eventually in June we expressed our feelings towards each other. I had put ‘Life’s too short‘ as my Facebook status and he shortly replied by posting ‘… to not like you very very much‘. Just two weeks later I booked tickets to go Belgium for a week to attend a music festival with him in mid August. We counted down every single day whilst falling more and more in love with each other.

When we finally met, we felt slightly shy at first. But after a few hours it was as if we had known each other forever. I even ended up spending more money to stay a second week because I just couldn’t bring myself to leave. It didn’t go down well with my family though, who at the time only thought that we were friends – until the night before I was to leave. That’s when I finally told them.

I cherished every single moment with T. We were barley separated the whole two weeks and leaving him on the last day was the hardest thing I’ve had to do. It broke my heart not knowing when I would see him again and cried on the eight hour journey home. That’s when I definitely knew I was truly, madly in love with him.

It’s been a month since I left and he is planning to come over in a month’s time. We have even spoke about moving together in the future. Although it’s incredibly hard to be apart for what can sometimes feel like a lifetime, a particular quote has helped ease the pain:

”Distance never separates two hearts that really care, for our memories span the miles and in seconds we are there. But whenever I start feeling sad, because I miss you, I remind myself how lucky I am to have someone so special to miss.”

Hopefully we will be able to update this some day with a happy ending.”

The following story gives me goosebumps. So romantic!

“My story starts over two years ago. I was nearly 22 years old, fresh out of college and back home from a nation-wide tour my theater group I had participated in. I had just fallen back into my routine of having a mediocre job, renting out a room for myself and listening to my mother telling me I needed a husband, a career, or both.

I wasn’t by any means socially awkward, I just wasn’t in the dating scene and didn’t plan on even trying for a date until I was completely settled.

One night, out of sheer boredom, I decided to hop back onto Ragnarok Online. I hadn’t played the game in a few months because I had maxed my character out. I got on and within minutes was bored. I went to the main city and just as the screen loaded, I noticed a guy named Malakai asking for assistance to hunt some rare drops. I waited a few minutes to see if he’d elaborate or to see if anyone else would offer to help him. Finally he said, “That’s it, I’m quitting.” I quickly messaged him and said that I’d help him for free, as long as he’d keep me company while I hunted for him.

While hunting I opened up to a complete stranger. I told him where I was in life, where I had come from and a lot of my personal stories just bubbled out. He didn’t judge me for any of them and even told me some of his deep dark secrets.

I was instantly hooked. Cautious of course, but still hooked. After talking in-game every day for nearly three weeks, I finally gave him my MySpace page and phone number. He did the same and I finally got to see the face of the man who was giving me butterflies on a daily basis. I just remember staring at his pictures for hours, letting my heart sink in who he was outside of the game. It wasn’t like he was the world’s most handsome man, but I was so completely captivated by him regardless. As soon as I saw his picture I knew I wanted to see him, yet he lived all the way across the country.

Eventually we realized we were completely head-over-heels in love and a meeting was long overdue. He came out to visit me first, and during his visit he proposed to me. We were engaged on our very first physical date.

We continued to play RO when we were apart from each other, but we made sure to visit each other at least once a month. Finally, the distance was too much and we eloped on one of our visits.

I regret nothing. Our romance was a whirlwind – from the time we met to our marriage only about seven months had passed. I moved out to be with him the next month after we were married and we’ve been happy ever since. We’ve been married now for a little over two years and have a beautiful seven month old daughter, who seems to have inherited the nerd gene! We are still so in love; he still gives me butterflies! He’s easily my best friend and I owe it all to one chance happening on a MMO that I’ve been playing since I was 13.

Though it may be taboo to some, it is an awesome way to meet new people. I would advise anyone looking for a relationship over a game to always proceed with caution, but to let your heart guide you too. True love can find you anytime, and you don’t want to miss the opportunity.”

Thank you A., for sharing this great story!

Many of the love tales I have received so far, have been from people who have met in World of Warcraft. When it comes to romance, WoW obviously can’t be beaten!
This weekend though, I found a story in my mailbox from a woman who ran into someone in a game called La Tale.

“I’d never been much of a people person, so I did not really have any local friends. I played a lot of online games though. The friends I lacked in reality, I made there. Some I even considered true friends.

After having played FFXI, Maple Story and Luna Online, I found a game called La Tale. I had heard of the game before when it first came out, but was unable to play it due to having a crappy PC. As soon as I was able to try it, I jumped right to that game. I played it for about half a year, made some friends rather quickly and… met someone special as well.

On various occasions it seemed I had to run into him. No matter where I was in the game, he was there too. Like me, he was not much of a talker. On a random day I was in the Crystal Mines, an area in the game I went to to make money without doing quests. And there he was, with a guildie of his. I stopped what I was doing and said “hi”. Then his companion started talking to me and asking me questions like what did I think of him and such. I ended up lol-ing shyly, not knowing what to say. After that we continued running into each other as usual. We ended up talking and became riends.

Fan art image of Pyris and Esper Shot

After some time had passed, I realized I had started to like him very much. I told him I wanted to surprise him with something, but unfortunately he had the in-game couple request blocked – which would have been my way of letting him know how I felt.

A few months later I confessed my feelings to him and asked how he would feel about us getting to know each other a bit more. In the weeks that followed, we spent hours talking non-stop, sent each other cute little e-mails and exchanged phone numbers.

We have been in a long distance relationship – he lives in California, I in Arizona – for almost a year now. Neither one of us is playing La Tale any more. At first I was worried that after quitting the game we might become distant, but nope: things are still as awesome as they were in the beginning.”

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Pyris!

The mailbox of MMO Couples has been empty for months. A bit sad for me, but on the other hand, love stories cannot be forced. They come when they are ready to come. The consequence is a serious lack of activity on MMO Couples, though. But do not despair: I am working on a MMO Couples project. Patience, patience.

A few days ago, totally unexpected, I did find a new message in the mailbox. Not the shortest one, I might add, and filled with quite an amount of questions. Apparently, CCP Games – EVE Online – is wondering how they can attract a higher percentage of female players to the game. CCP Games threw this burning question into the community, hoping for ideas. And that’s how Arrhidaeus came to me.

Not ever having played EVE Online, I felt I was not quite the right person to come to for suggestions. Still, I could not leave Arrhidaeus drifting helplessly and alone in this unknown, hostile territory, and decided to give it a shot. My contemplations can be read further down his article. It is quite a read, but worth your time if you are interested in the topic ‘games and gender’.

There is a good article about women and games by Hannah Crosby, called ‘Putting Women in Games’, in Filament Magazine issue nr. four, which is an erotic magazine for women who do not only like male nudity, but fancy a smart read as well. And I can warmly recommend a blog of a dear friend of mine, Bezerk Raccoon, for related gamer girl topics – and gamer girl pictures…

I like Arrhidaeus’ solution
I can foresee a growing demand for female co-pilots in World of Warcraft too… Sokaris would certainly have enjoyed some company in his rolfcopter

“I started playing World of Warcraft on a semi-whim after a friend had suggested it. I was living with my (ex-) boyfriend. To distract myself, I played WoW.

Fast forward a year or so: I broke up with my (ex-) boyfriend, but due to a financial situation, we continued living together and remained great friends.
I met a dashing paladin after joining the guild of a friend I made in ST. At the time, the guild would often convene on Ventrilo and we’d go get our asses kicked by the Horde in PvP. This is where I really met my pally. I thought his voice was sexy :X

We flirted for a bit, but nothing serious. Then things progressed and we started really talking. Unlike many other couples who meet online, neither of us are really socially inept or terribly awkward, however there is an anonymous nature about revealing yourself online to someone. We weren’t looking for this. I remember exactly when it started toward something more substantial. I whispered a friend saying “I actually like him, but I’d never tell him.” Instead of whispering it to the intended friend though, I sent it to him!

I don’t open up easily and he sensed this. His told me ridiculous and embarrassing stories about himself to prove that I could be open and trust him. We started talking on on the phone a lot and decided we’d meet soon. We were both half-way falling for each other, but would never give in to it without meeting. We wanted to make sure this was real and what we had online translated to the same IRL.

I was nervous about meeting and sat in the lobby, observing a man I was certain was him, but not enough to positively ID him. I ignored him. After watching him for a couple of minutes, I started wondering negative things. After surely thinking he thought I was ugly and getting ready to leave, I went over him in a moment of bravery and asked, “oh, are you waiting for someone?” That was it. We spent three wonderful days together. Our chemistry was amazing – just like online. It’s still amazing.

I wrote this in my journal after he left:

It’s been months. Things are solid. I guess it’s safe to share in semi-chronological order with huge gaps of time unexplained.

I was surprised the first time he kissed me – I remember feeling a jolt that ran down my spine when his tongue touched mine. My head was on his shoulder, tipped upward, lips parted. His lips were inches from mine, but they felt like miles. I breathed faintly on his mouth, trying to encourage him, extending a silent invitation. The anticipation aroused me and I was still too shy to initiate entirely on my own. I’m very sure he knew exactly what I wanted, but deliberately didn’t give in to make me want more.

I went outside on the balcony smoke. I felt extremely girlish, twirling my legs as I looked at the lights. He stood behind me, wrapping his arms around my robed body and burying his face in my shoulder. I turned around and looked at him, and he had the most boyish smile etched on his face. His eyes were so warm and alive, twinkling brighter than any star I’d seen in the sky. I loved the way freckles splattered under his eyes and over his nose like a Pollock painting. My skin tingled where his hand had been on my face, a phantom handprint on my cheek.

I knew I loved him in a couple days. The first time I told him I loved him, I choked on my words. My eyes filled with tears and my throat swelled up. My chest tightened and burned every time I inhaled. I hesitated once, burying my face in his neck so I could breathe, then pulled back and told him. He wiped my tears away and told me I didn’t even have to tell him, because he already knew. My eyes said it every time I looked at him. He said he loved me, told me I was pretty when I cried, and kissed my lips. It’s hard to imagine then that I could ever say it with such relative ease as I do now.

It’s been over a year since then. We live two hours apart now (we lived 1,300 miles apart when we first met IRL) and are planning on moving in together. We see each other regularly. He’s met my family, I’ve met his. We look forward to starting our life together instead of always talking about it.

We still play WoW together: I send him dirty whispers while he tanks hard instances that I’m healing. ^_^”

Thanks for sharing your story, Dee! I wish you both lots of luck and love, and hope moving together will work out soon!

Gabi

“If you would have told me about two years ago that the man of my dreams lived in Florida, I probably would have laughed at you. If you had told me I would meet this man in World of Warcraft, I would have been in hysterics. See, I thought World of Warcraft was for über nerds – until I met the guy who introduced it to me, a guy who I was dating.

After the first time I played it, I was instantly hooked. It was so much fun, and I was meeting such funny people to talk to and quest with, kill zombies and what not. Life was good: I’d go to work, then come home and play WoW. I didn’t know anyone in real life who played this game – my friends all called me a geek- but I didn’t care.

I played on the server Bleeding Hollow. About a year into playing I started a new job, and found some people there who played WoW aswell. So I thought to myself: these guys are cool . They invited me to come join their guild on a different server so we could raid, run instances and stuff together, so I agreed. I made the switch over to that server and immediately got invited to their guild. I was shy for the first month and didn’t really talk to anyone in the guild, except for my two real life buddies. Eventually I started doing stuff with other members of the guild as well, and finally got invited to a few raids.

There was this Priest named Pd. He gave me a Savory Delight and started /blame-ing my pet. I found that amusing. We ended up talking just about the game and silly things. He made me laugh.
I also cannot pinpoint the exact moment our relationship took a turn towards the more personal side. I do know I had been intrigued by him since the very first time we ever talked. And then, when I started having romantic-ish feelings for this guy I had never met before, I came across mmocouples.wordpress.com.

I was still in a relationship, but by that point in time it was falling down around my ears – it was a very rocky relationship right from the get go. I decided to break up with him. I lived in the same house with my ex for a couple weeks, figuring out where to go and what I was going to do, all the while talking to my priest. I asked him one night: “if I couldn’t play WoW for while, would you still talk to me?” He said “of course!”. So when I finally moved out, we kept in contact via E-mail and very lengthy phone calls. They never seemed that long to us. “I swear we’ve only been talking for a hour.”

After breaking up with my ex-boyfriend things became a lot clearer to me, and I am very happy to have not wasted too much of my life on someone like him. I just find it very funny that there are so many things that could have prevented my priest and I from meeting, but we did. I consider myself blessed. Anyways, he is one of the most amazing people I have ever met, and I am so lucky to have found him. He is coming down to see me right after Christmas. We are going to spend New Years Eve together.
I know that there is going to be a lot of big decisions to make, seeing as I live in Canada and he is in America, but I’m not worried at all. In fact, I’ve never been more excited in my life. We will make it work “

Thank you for sharing your story – and the funny pic, S.! Enjoy your first being-together to the fullest!

Gabi

S., a woman in her early twenties, writes to me that she is in a relationship, but that she is unhappy. She had started playing a MMO some time ago, and has met a male player with whom she connects. She feels confused and does not know what to do.

A. has been chatting online with a woman, who lives in another country, for months. He is not much into going out. He is more the introvert type – online connecting to people is easier for him though.
Their friendship means a lot to him. At some point she started to flirt, make suggestive remarks, but also shared details about encounters with other men. From time to time she is not online for days, and does not respond to his e-mails. When she comes back, she acts as friendly as usual. He feels hurt and jealous. Why is she doing this? What does she want? Insecurty and confusion eat him up inside. A. thinks she does not value the friendship – value him – as much as he would like her to.

T. and M. met in a MMO and fell in love. She went to his hometown to visit him, and they had a great time together. After she had left, T. realized that without her he would not be happy, and made plans to move to her country, find a job and live together. When they talked online, he noticed that she was getting distant. At some point she told him she thinks it is not going to work. T. suspects there are still unresolved issues between her and her ex-partner. Maybe her family is trying to influence her into ending this thing with him as well. What can he do?

Stories like the ones above are more common than the happy endings. Eventhough this blog is meant for the love stories that are successful, I feel the other side of online encounters should get the attention it deserves as well.

When I first published my own love story, the reactions varied from “amazing love story” to “you are a cheating bitch”. At the time I did not respond to the negative responses, for what do they know about me and my former relationship. I deliberately had not written much about it; in the end it was also not the point of my story.

The situation that S. describes to me in her e-mail, is actually quite similar to mine back then. When you are at this critical point in the relationship and then meet someone else, if it is in an online environment or in real life, the awareness of being unhappy with what you have, grows even more. Meeting another person is an alarm bell. When it starts ringing, it is time to seperate the new fascination from the unsatisfying existing relationship, and have a good and clear look at it: what is wrong between my partner and me? Can it be solved? Do I want it to be solved?
Once you have answered those questions for yourself, and acted accordingly, you will know what to do with the virtual reality. Either you can work it out with your partner, and the online flirt is over. Or the relationship is doomed, you end it and you decide to explore the online flirt further – or not.

There are many people like A. who are shy or insecure in real life, who find it difficult to meet and connect with strange people. For them the internet is a much safer and secure playground to be social. This is one of the positive possibilities of the internet, and at the same time one of the most dangerous.
Online you can present yourself differently. Nothing can happen to you, for you are at a safe distance. When you meet someone online though, you have even less control over the situation than when you do in the real world.

As I have written before, you lack lots of useful information, information you need to read the other person and understand what he or she wants. No facial expressions or other types of behaviour, no sounds. Unless you have a webcam, you don’t know what this guy or girl is doing during chatting. Maybe this person is totally commited to chatting with you. Or maybe he or she has ten chat windows open. Maybe this person is not taking you seriously at all and laughs his or her ass off. Maybe he or she is not a he or she at all… Lots of maybe’s!

Since I am a girl myself, I know a bit about our more devilish side. There are women who – for the fun of it, or for their own little ego’s – like to tease around on the internet. Here again it is easy to flirt and fool around without serious or dangerous consequences. It is cool for us ladies to be openly sexy and naughty. By acting this out online, you get all the testosteron attention you desire. It can be fun for both sides, but it can also be a deadly trap, especially for a shy man like A. If you bump into the type that likes to feed the affection of a man, but has no serious intentions with him at all, heartache is the only endresult.

So guys, how do you avoid this? Communicate! If you feel safe enough to flirt online, you can also ask what her intentions are, make clear rules and set boundaries:

Why is she telling me she is all naked right now?
Ask her!

Why does she share certain information with me about her sex life with other people?
Ask her!

What does she mean with this remark, is she being suggestive here?
Ask her!

What does she mean with “I like you”?
Ask her!

I am really starting to have feelings for her…; Where is this all going…; I want to take things a step further; I want to meet her in real life; I only want to have cyber sex with her; … What should I do? Tell her, be open about your intentions, set the rules. Communicate, be honest and keep things transparent. Sure, she can still tell lies and keep you dangling in the dark, but if you have any doubts, try to investigate further. If it does not bring you anything, let her go.
If she is honest and tells you it is just a game, it can hurt as well. But that kind of pain will resolve quicker than months of torture by not knowing what is going on. After a “no, I am not interested”, you can move on!

Sorry girls who may have experienced this the other way around! Of course there are also men playing these kind of games, but let’s be honest here: it is more a girl’s thing.

The situation of T. also shows how little control or insight you can have when you are in a long distance relationship. His MMO love came to visit him, and things seemed to be going very well… Still he has ended up being seperated from her, without knowing what is going on with her now that she is back home again.

You have no control over the influence of family and friends. In my case, every one was very supportive and enthusiastic about my relationship with my Hunter. But consider this: they had never met him before. They could also have told me I would be a fool to pursue it. Who knows how I would have acted if every one would have told me it would be stupid to get involved with a – for them – complete stranger…

You also can’t control other (ex-)lovers in his or her surroundings. All you can do, is sit and wait and hope that he or she chooses you over them. It is something you need to take into account when you start taking a long distance relationship seriously.

And last but not least: someone can also change his or her mind. Feelings were being built up over months. Then people finally meet. And maybe, afterwards, one of them realizes it was not what he or she’d expected it to be. Or maybe it is simply too hard to be in a long distance relationship, or he/she doesn’t want to move in so fast just because otherwise they can’t be together. Maybe he or she does not dare to say anything about this, because they don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings.

Here too, many maybe’s and possibilities. All I can say, is talk. Avoiding pain and disappointment by not communicating will hurt more – and leave a deeper scar – than honesty.

/smile, /cuddle, /hug, /kiss, /love,…
Or for the naughty ones among us gamers: /kneel followed with a /lick,…

Those are the possibilities a character in World of Warcraft has to show his or her love and affection for another player. The character does make the fitting animation and blows a kiss at you, but other than that a line in the chat saying that “Tofu cuddles up against you”, is all you get. The character does not grab the other char and holds him or her, there is no cuddling, no real kiss on the cheek.

When my Hunter and I were still living miles apart, the virtual environment of the game was the only place to interact with each other. We went to a secret location in the forest of Duskwood to be “alone”. We swam along the shores of Stranglethorn Vale and “cuddled” on the beach. When we logged out of the game, we put our chars in the same bed in the local inn – of course we struggled putting them in the right romantic sleeping position . Making romantic screenshots is a pain in the ass to say the least.

Perfect World screenshot

This all might seem pretty silly for adult players to concern themselves with, but if you have no other means to be together, the options you have in World of Warcraft feel rather limited.
There are other online games in which the chars can have intercourse. I certainly do not want to plead for the possibility for chars to have sex in fantasy MMOs, but if it is technically possible to have chars touching each other, why not have these animations in games like WoW? In my opinion, it would make the game and its social aspects so much richer. I admit I have little to no experience with similar games, but Perfect World for example seems to have more romantic animations (see picture)…

According to my own humble research World of Warcraft is the number 1 game worldwide in which most love affairs unfold. So how about it, Blizzard?