Allow me to say how fucking stupid all of that stuff is. No offense but I don't even want to meet any of you, let alone marry you. I prefer to keep this hobby distinctly seperate from my real life.
Square Enix folds to disturbing internet marriages...
I wouldn't mind meeting a few people I've met on TRF. Where else could you get a better tour of England, then from Seth? :)
That was harsh. Let me clarify.
This sort of thing all springs from and leads to taking fantasy more seriously than reality. These internet marriages give way to real marriages as they did in Everquest, and even if not they still originate from people who take a game way too bloody seriously. I'll talk about both aspects.
The internet is stupid. It makes you stupid. Ultimately it's just text and pictures. No one is precisely who they seem to be on the internet; by the very fact that you are typing instead of speaking, at your own pace instead of someone else's, your personality and tone is altered. Hence the reason I've offended so many of you but manage to, for the most part, avoid doing so in real life; there is (beyond what a skilled writer can put out) very little subtlty in writing, at least in comparison to real human communication. When I type something, there is no nonchalant sarcasm, no joking smile, no hint of self-deprication. Just words.
You can tell more about a person with one look at them and ten seconds of listening to them speak than you can in a year of exchanging messages over the internet. Their intonation, the gestures they make, their eyes, all tell you more than text possibly can. Because the fact is that if I wanted to I could probably pretend to be anyone over the internet; I haven't tried, so maybe I'm wrong, but I figure I'm a good enough writer with enough flexibility to fake any role.
For the most part though, this isn't a case of whether or not a person is who they say they are, it's a case of a text medium's inability to effectively communicate the human experience. So I don't see how any of these people can say that they "know" each other by meeting over the internet. The fact is that this is such a pale shade of reality that I don't really know any of you, and none of you know me. (For which I am extremely thankful.)
So, yes, I'll say it, this sort of "internet marriage" shit is primarily driven by a lack of social skill and sexual desperation. I'm sorry, but it is. I don't care if I offend any of you by saying that so save it. Only a socially impaired person would find greater interest in someone over a digital medium than to those he comes into physical contact with. Even if it is just an aspect of "roleplaying" and not carried out in actuality as the aforementioned Everquest marriages were, it is still an indication of taking this game far too seriously and attempting to supplant reality with a fantasy world.
The greatest appeal of the internet to "nerds" is that, no matter what you say about meeting people from around the world or whatnot, the internet is basically not a social exercise. It is just you, by yourself, typing on a computer. You are receiving feedback, true, but that feedback is really no different than the feedback you might receive in a video game. Internet relationships are not real. You cannot know a person through a digital medium.
And if I might just briefly comment on the sort of thing that this over-absortion in a video game leads to -- that is to say, the Everquest marriage thing and people trying to take their digital relationships into reality -- I have the following to say.
Whether or not you pretentious elitist nerds (who will reply to this with shouts of "oh Gash you're so shallow, blah blah whine whine") will admit it, there is a physical element to all relationships, both in terms of sexual attraction and the other varying elements of one's appearance. The way you carry yourself, the way you act and walk and gesticulate and speak, all of these play a role but none of these can be communicated over the internet. And on a basic level if there is no sexual attraction there is no relationship. Not a happy one anyway.
And perhaps more importantly, if there is a sexual attraction over the internet, that is a sexual attraction that is based not in reality but in fantasy. As, I suspect, most internet relationships are. It is telling that the Everquest marriages spring from an fantasy video game. Obviously these people have a propensity for mistaking fantasy for reality -- it isn't such a great step from that to acting on fantasy feelings.
This sort of thing all springs from and leads to taking fantasy more seriously than reality. These internet marriages give way to real marriages as they did in Everquest, and even if not they still originate from people who take a game way too bloody seriously. I'll talk about both aspects.
The internet is stupid. It makes you stupid. Ultimately it's just text and pictures. No one is precisely who they seem to be on the internet; by the very fact that you are typing instead of speaking, at your own pace instead of someone else's, your personality and tone is altered. Hence the reason I've offended so many of you but manage to, for the most part, avoid doing so in real life; there is (beyond what a skilled writer can put out) very little subtlty in writing, at least in comparison to real human communication. When I type something, there is no nonchalant sarcasm, no joking smile, no hint of self-deprication. Just words.
You can tell more about a person with one look at them and ten seconds of listening to them speak than you can in a year of exchanging messages over the internet. Their intonation, the gestures they make, their eyes, all tell you more than text possibly can. Because the fact is that if I wanted to I could probably pretend to be anyone over the internet; I haven't tried, so maybe I'm wrong, but I figure I'm a good enough writer with enough flexibility to fake any role.
For the most part though, this isn't a case of whether or not a person is who they say they are, it's a case of a text medium's inability to effectively communicate the human experience. So I don't see how any of these people can say that they "know" each other by meeting over the internet. The fact is that this is such a pale shade of reality that I don't really know any of you, and none of you know me. (For which I am extremely thankful.)
So, yes, I'll say it, this sort of "internet marriage" shit is primarily driven by a lack of social skill and sexual desperation. I'm sorry, but it is. I don't care if I offend any of you by saying that so save it. Only a socially impaired person would find greater interest in someone over a digital medium than to those he comes into physical contact with. Even if it is just an aspect of "roleplaying" and not carried out in actuality as the aforementioned Everquest marriages were, it is still an indication of taking this game far too seriously and attempting to supplant reality with a fantasy world.
The greatest appeal of the internet to "nerds" is that, no matter what you say about meeting people from around the world or whatnot, the internet is basically not a social exercise. It is just you, by yourself, typing on a computer. You are receiving feedback, true, but that feedback is really no different than the feedback you might receive in a video game. Internet relationships are not real. You cannot know a person through a digital medium.
And if I might just briefly comment on the sort of thing that this over-absortion in a video game leads to -- that is to say, the Everquest marriage thing and people trying to take their digital relationships into reality -- I have the following to say.
Whether or not you pretentious elitist nerds (who will reply to this with shouts of "oh Gash you're so shallow, blah blah whine whine") will admit it, there is a physical element to all relationships, both in terms of sexual attraction and the other varying elements of one's appearance. The way you carry yourself, the way you act and walk and gesticulate and speak, all of these play a role but none of these can be communicated over the internet. And on a basic level if there is no sexual attraction there is no relationship. Not a happy one anyway.
And perhaps more importantly, if there is a sexual attraction over the internet, that is a sexual attraction that is based not in reality but in fantasy. As, I suspect, most internet relationships are. It is telling that the Everquest marriages spring from an fantasy video game. Obviously these people have a propensity for mistaking fantasy for reality -- it isn't such a great step from that to acting on fantasy feelings.
Very well said -- er -- written.
All right. Being one of these people that has married someone I met online, let me say how it was for me.
My 'internet relationships' are almost always completely based upon whatever game I am playing. When one of my characters gets married in a Role Playing Game it is nothing but a part of a story. For me there is no emotional attachement in the real world to the other party. It is merely as if a character in a book married another.
Just text and words.
However, my current wife and I became friends Online, enough to begin exchanging phone calls and what not. After several years of this friendship we met, and that is when we truly fell in love.
So, having been through this I can agree with both sides of the arguement.
You can find true love and happiness on the internet, but only truly have it in real life. Most of the time any attachment you allow yourself to feel on the internet is pure fantasy. I know several people who have met those they like in the real world and the relationship has turned sour quickly.
My wife and I are but a lucky small percentage who work well both in the real world and through through the online world.
When we met in the real world neither of us planned on a romantic relationship, but it came about on it's own. So, in closing, I would say that even with the way my wife and I worked out I am still very careful about relationships of ANY sort on the internet, even friendly ones.
I would especially be disturbed if there was anyone who based a romantic relationship solely on their internet ties.
My 'internet relationships' are almost always completely based upon whatever game I am playing. When one of my characters gets married in a Role Playing Game it is nothing but a part of a story. For me there is no emotional attachement in the real world to the other party. It is merely as if a character in a book married another.
Just text and words.
However, my current wife and I became friends Online, enough to begin exchanging phone calls and what not. After several years of this friendship we met, and that is when we truly fell in love.
So, having been through this I can agree with both sides of the arguement.
You can find true love and happiness on the internet, but only truly have it in real life. Most of the time any attachment you allow yourself to feel on the internet is pure fantasy. I know several people who have met those they like in the real world and the relationship has turned sour quickly.
My wife and I are but a lucky small percentage who work well both in the real world and through through the online world.
When we met in the real world neither of us planned on a romantic relationship, but it came about on it's own. So, in closing, I would say that even with the way my wife and I worked out I am still very careful about relationships of ANY sort on the internet, even friendly ones.
I would especially be disturbed if there was anyone who based a romantic relationship solely on their internet ties.
P.S. I am very tired, so if some of that was confusing, I am sorry.
All this coming up now was just too funny. Before Grevious proposed to kill her off, I was going to propose that Jade, instead of killing off her character, had her marry my Imperial character, and let her drift off as an NPC house and functions/affairs wife..........
I Am The Internet
Our hobbies are our real life. It would be like saying that you never speak to your bandmates outside of rehearsal, or for a sports player to never talk to his or her teammates outside games and practice. Having common interests -- hobbies -- is how you make friends. Just because this particular hobby is typing on a computer, doesn't make it any less real.
Yeah you'll get the weirdos mixed in with the good, but I think that's true in real life too.
Yeah you'll get the weirdos mixed in with the good, but I think that's true in real life too.
I don't talk to my friends about RPing... though you are right in that people who play Everquest/counterstrike/whatever talk about it all the bloody time. It's kind of freaky...