Would you dump your wife for an online romance?

by Vladimir Cole { Nov 11th 2005 at 9:19AM }

Would you dump your signifcant other for a woman you met while playing World of Warcraft? Kuro5hin user Metavisual has detailed his experience with addiction to World of Warcraft and his run-in with a cyber vixen who was looking for a fix to her self esteem by snaring the love of a married dude online.

At one point, Metavisual purchased plane tickets and laid plans to visit his online lover. He packed a suitcase (and probably some birth control) and was just about to head out the door when his wife sniffed something rotten and left the house first, trapping him between his desire to consummate his digital relationship and his duty to make sure his young children had supervision (he couldn't leave the house if his wife weren't there).

This tale isn't uncommon. You may have heard it before if you've been playing MMOGs for a while, but what makes this interesting is the engaging style of it and the implication that WoW is the most popular MMOG ever, therefore this story must be playing out in countless marriages across the land. A whole new population of players is learning to come to terms with an incredibly seductive virtual world.

Many years from now, just about everyone will have been exposed to a virtual world and will have learned to find balance between the seduction of those worlds and the realities of meatspace. Parents will have talks with their kids about the proper way to balance the two. Support structures will be in place and everyone will be given tools to understand how it all fits together. Until then, virtual world newbies will have to figure it out on their own. Many of them will make mistakes.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

yay @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Man, people really need to get lives.

DG @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Man, people need to stop getting married.

LC_ @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

It doesn't matter, because as we all know, women don't exist on the interweb!

vc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

It's easy to say that people need to get lives. I think in most of the cases I've seen where folks made this mistake, they had "lives" but were caught off guard by the power of the MMOG elixir and it took some dangerous scrapes to help them get straight.

In my years playing MMOGs with the hardcore crowd, I've seen multiple divorces as a result of EQ and WoW addiction. I don't think that the people who screw up their "real" lives in an attempt to further their "virtual" lives are necessarily living irrationally. If you're spending REAL time in a game, that's your real life.

Nushio @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Yes if I married my ex. :P

yay @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Okay, let me tell you all a story about will power.

I used to have an addiction to Return to Castle Wolfenstein online, I did nothing but play it for 3 years. I enjoyed it, didn't play it too excesively, but I played it often. I stopped playing a while ago due to my growing stacks of games that I was buying, but not playing, due to Wolfenstein.

Now, the majority of the games in my stacks of them are RPGs, I love them, they are my favorite type of game, bar none. No MMOs, just single player stuff.

Ever since WOW and Guild Wars have been released, I have been getting pestered by most of my co-workers who play these games religiously online, and want me to play with them.

Given my love for RPGs and my once online addiction, you would think that I would have been snared by them a long time ago, but I have not.

As much as I would love to play one, I know that I would get addicted to it and would do nothing else but play it. So I play my single player RPGs and actually "Beat" games instead of leveling up my character for hours on end. It's much more rewarding to me. They can bug me all they want, I will not play an MMO.

So my point is this. If you know that you will get addicted to something, just stay away from it and don't participate. If you are playing too much, and thinking of leaving your wife, you need to go to a marriage counselor, not ask your MMO buddies for advice.

Nushio @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

yay: You do have a point. But not if you're talking about my Ex :P

I, too, hate MMOGs, mainly because of the crowd. I prefer multiplayer (read: 2-8 players) online than MMOGs.

I also hate my ex. I still miss her, but my aim is improving! :D

Walker @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

I love when articles like this come out from any news source because it makes the argument that gay marriage would ruin the sanctity of marriage a weaker and weaker opinion when it becomes more and more obvious that heterosexuals have no problem with runing the concept of marriage on their own. :P

Vesper @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

People in general are great at finding ways to ruin their marriages... if it's not WoW, it's some nasty old thing at the bar.

Chiablo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Wow Walker, way to threadjack and turn it into a homo vs hetero debate.

Notice the key phrase in the article... "CHILDREN" that is why he was so willing to leave. Marriage will note destroy your relationship with your wife... children will.

Nushio @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Chiablo: Children will not destroy a marriage, lack of cooperation from your sex partner (to have sex) will.

As a matter of fact, I believe I'd find it easier to last longer married with children than alone, because with children, you actually have someone else too look out for.

emma @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Man, my BF did that o.O

Nushio @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

DG @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

My favorite aspect of Joystiq is that complicated moral and political of the day are debated are so matter-of-factly decided in one to two sentences on a video game blog. It's really very touching that teens to twenty somethings are so ready to go and either: a) change prevailing cultural attitudes and become a more open and accepting society or b) become a Social Darwinish conservative on account of their awesome Halo 2 skills.

It's really very touching.