Comments on: Girls Who Like Boys Whose Wives Are Unamused

By: Leo Wisniewski

Leo Wisniewski — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:12:11 +0000

I’m sure the congress will pass a law forbidding the virtual wives, for all the right wingers out there. But don’t pass any laws that regulate the banking practices out there. Did they all forget what happened to most of the Savings and Loans. Just a little common sense that’s all we ask for, and pray for.

By: Female Gamer

Female Gamer — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 02:57:47 +0000

I would bet good money that if he’d meet this SL Wife, they’d last 4 weeks, tops. Then he’d have to go back to something that’d meet his imagination’s expectations.

Well, he’s lasted 7 months with the last one.

I wonder how long he knew his current wife (not online, I mean) before they married? Engels has it right. He was looking online for the “perfect” woman, found her in a chat room, and now they’re married IRL, it’s not so perfect anymore. People in chat rooms (or SL) don’t snore, leave dirty sweat socks in places no dirty sweat sock should be, bitch about guys leaving the seat up, make spaghetti for dinner three nights in a row, go bald, or any of the other inconvenient things real human beings do.

Typing that got me thinking … y’know, in a sense online friendships are a return to a more formalized sort of friendship from a hundred years ago, when upper-class people only saw their friends (and let their friends see them) at their best. People in “society” only saw carefully presented images of each other, minus of course the occasional unfortunate and quickly hushed-up lapse. The old becomes new again.

By: Scott (Not Lum)

Scott (Not Lum) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:32:43 +0000

Thing is, women are also over-exposed to the media ideal of the ‘perfect’ man. So much so that the expectation is that if you meet some idea, you’ll attract the perfectly successful and upwardly mobile man. I think of it as the ‘princess’ complex, everyone can be Cinderella, so long as they get that moment to show how beautiful and unique they are… Just like everyone else.

By: Engels

Engels — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:14:43 +0000

Thing is, men have been so over-exposed by our media to ‘perfect’ women that our imagination is well ahead of reality. Hence, men are not content with our ‘ordinary’ wives, and harbor fantasies about the secretary, the cashier, and in this case, some virtual bimbette. I would bet good money that if he’d meet this SL Wife, they’d last 4 weeks, tops. Then he’d have to go back to something that’d meet his imagination’s expectations.

By: Female Gamer

Female Gamer — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:52:27 +0000

If this guy was exchanging steamy love letters with someone he had never met, would that count as cheating on his wife?

Because, basically, that’s what he’s doing. It’s nothing new. He’s far from the first person in the history of the world to have a long-distance love affair, nor the first person to be caught red-handed by his wife. Wives (and husbands) have been intercepting love letters from parties other than themselves since long before the invention of computers.

Nothing to see, move along. No new “syndrome” or “addiction” or whatever they’re calling it this week. Just a man who thinks marriage is about who you have sex with, not who you love, and a woman who thinks a man she met in a bar is going to stop going to bars now he’s married to her. There are most likely far more issues, and far deeper issues, in that already-failed marriage than anything the article even touched on.

By: Nicademus

Nicademus — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:04:39 +0000

Mr. Peach, unless you have an office marriage then this is not the same. The guy is an idiot. If he kept his wife in the loop and it’s no big deal then hey go to town. But if you’re that much of an online junky that you want to do these kind of things you should at least mention it at dinner beforehand. No she may not understand you and may in fact throw a pepper mill at your head (that is what would happen if I told my wife) but at least you’d be an honest loser.

Betrayals of omission are still betrayals. The Catholic Church says as much so it MUST be true!

By: Mr_PeaCH

Mr_PeaCH — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:16:32 +0000

This seems a lot more like the ‘office spouse’ syndrome than bona-fide cheating to me. I mean, because they, in the context of their on-line/virtual/so-called lives, term it a “marriage”… WTF does that have to do with the real-time/meatspace/legally wed wife that he goes-home/logs-off to? Likely his behavior in SL has more to do with the nature of his relationship in RL than his wife cares to think about.

Are people really that insecure? Completely rhetorical; obviously some are.

By: Vykromond

Vykromond — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:11:03 +0000

>Actually, the really eye-opening thing was the graphic that talked about Entropia Universe. 600k players, paying an average of $50/player/month? Holy crap, some people will play anything if it’s pretty enough, I guess. Let’s put it this way, that’s the equivalent of 2 million $15/month subscriptions…

I wouldn’t draw any conclusions along those lines without more knowledge about the reporting of those numbers. It does list Second Life as having 8.6 million users on the same chart.

By: ghiest

ghiest — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:15:53 +0000

Not just seen it in wow … I have memories from the drama in EQ

By: J.

J. — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 14:40:54 +0000

Is he cheating on his virtual wife, when he has sex with his real one?

Only if he does it in text.