The thread about the masks we wear In-game...Follow

I am sure we have all seen this before, ingame couples who take the relationship beyond roleplay and actually grow to love one another in some way or another. My question is this: What causes such strong feelings for someone you do not really know? Some would argue that it is loneliness in real life, yet in many of these relationships, one or both ingame partners is married IRL. Some say its because the game is much like leading a second life, so naturally you would have the same goals in it as in your real one; love, happiness, wealth, fame, etc. And still there are others who would argue that it is none of anyone elses business so long as the relationship stays ingame. Yet how can it stay ingame if the feelings felt are as real as the ones we feel when we are not playing? How can it stay ingame when these people look foward to coming home and seeing their ingame partner much in the same way they would look foward to seeing their real husbands, wifes, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc? What is it that drives some players to seek out companionship and love in this game the way they do? What is it that allows a person whose face one has not ever even seen to have such a strong influence on ones life? What is it that causes the lines between reality and fantasy to blur in this way?

I see two different issues at hand, here. One is RP, and that's always extremely sketchy - whether you care for the person or their character, or whether, in truth, you're in love with the writing itself. The drama that ensues is one of many, many, many reasons I've gotten out of the roleplaying community in which I used to be entrenched. There are too many people there who have no sense of priority, responsibility, or in some cases, reality. The virtual world is all that they have. In those cases, I would say that the problem has little to do with how foolhardy it may be to meet people online. It has a lot more to do with the fact that many roleplayers - by no means all, and don't get up in arms at me over this, because I was one, too - are just indulging in a whole lot of escapism because they don't like their real lives. Becoing involved in a relationship with them is just begging for disaster, because chances are they aren't telling you something that's very, very real and very, very complicating.

The other issue is whether you can truly build a real, loving relationship with someone you meet online. I say, why the hell not? We're all people manning the keyboards, here. It's just a different way to meet, with its own unique things that are great and things that suck. I find that in a virtual world, it's easier to feel a deep, immediate connection with someone. You meet here, so you're starting with one thing in common, and it's the nature of the beast that more will follow. Some of my best friends are people I've met online, one way or another. One of my dearest friends, I've never met in person. Which is a problem, actually, because it's true - there's only so much you can build of a relationship, friendship or more, without seeing them face-to-face.

It's also a lot easier to just cut that off. Your interaction with someone online only extends as far as your computer screen; you don't have to worry about seeing them at work, or at school, or hearing that one of your friends ran into them. You have the choice to keep a distance between you and the object of your affections, by not giving out your phone number or electing to meet them in person. You don't want to talk to them, you just get up from your computer, sign off, turn off the screen. Or you just don't talk to them. It's a hell of a lot harder to ignore someone who's sitting right next to you, or even on the phone with you. But people do it online all the time, and because the person in question isn't sitting right there, there's no accountability, no guilt, no discomfort, no idea that maybe, just maybe, that real person on the other side of the screen isn't being treated fairly.

This makes it a lot easier to forget when it's convenient for you to do so that there is a person on the other side of the screen, who gets tired, sick, hurt, angry. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to romanticize anyone you come across. It can magnify their good qualities, and it can just as much magnify the bad. Online relationships of all stripes come with their own kinds of baggage that you have to learn to deal with, just by keeping a clear head about you. Unfortunately, the tendency to get sucked into something is magnified in the types of people who play online games in the first place. You get in over your head, because why are you here, in this game? You want to believe in something that's fun, that's good, that's wonderful. Love isn't part of the game, but you're already in the mindset of suspending disbelief and the laws of reality. It's just another step for that, and harder to keep your head about you.

"We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, --
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!"