Where did you meet your partner? If your response is online, you should know that you are pretty much like everyone else nowadays. Something even more interesting to note is that more and more couples are meeting through online gaming. While busy at bingo sites and with network games many take the chance to chat with other players in which way new relationships are formed. In fact, 1 in 3 World of Warcraft players are attracted to one another. Sometimes this attraction stays virtual but many times the players will meet up in reality and when they do they often fall in love.
While you don’t hear about it every day, it is starting to happen more and more frequently. Players that met in a game fall in love and get married. It all starts in the virtual world where they use avatars and nicknames to take part of the game. This could be a video type of game where players take on different roles or even bingo and casino games where participants have the chance to talk to each other during games.
By chatting the players get to know one another and with time they come to like each other so much that they want to meet in real life. Since the attraction is based on communication rather than looks (remember that avatars can be little trolls and weird looking figures) it is highly likely that they will like each other when they meet, too. As soon as they start talking they discover that this person who looks like a stranger really is that online person that they have so much in common with.
As people get married they also start families and we hear great stories like the one about the Sun Bingo baby that was the result of two people meeting while playing online bingo at the Sun Bingo site. When their baby was born all their friends on the bingo site cheered.
An easy and acceptable way to meet and connect
Online dating can be great, but it does come with a certain amount of pressure. When you join an online dating site you are expected to work on making connections, and you also need to present yourself well to attract the right types of people.
In a computer game the object is not to meet people and date but to have fun, a factor which removes that pressure. If you chat with another player it is not meant as an invitation to a date and in that way the conversation can remain easy and natural. You can compare this to when people met before online dating just by hanging out and getting to know each other.
Something else that makes it easier to meet a partner through games and online dating services is that people no longer see online dating as something weird. Without the stigma it is perfectly fine to say that you met your partner online while playing bingo or through a site for singles. No one will think any less of you because it’s likely that they are also busy looking for love and companionship online.
Even if some people still think you must be a bit desperate to look for someone online, they won’t say the same thing about meeting your love through your hobby. You didn’t plan on falling in love, but it just happened while you were busy playing your favorite bingo game or got into character in World of Warcraft. Without any stigma whatsoever it is easy to relax and let those other gamers into your heart and life.
Can the Game Continue Once you met?
Once you met Mr. or Mrs. Perfect in a gaming chat you might feel reluctant to let them continue the fun without you. There are plenty of other cute troll avatars out there and you may start to feel nervous about new connections forming when you are not part of the game. Perhaps there will be new rules for the gaming, just like a couple who met in a bar rarely continue going to bars alone after they’ve become an item.
Online gaming has certainly become a fertile ground for online dating and it demands a new set of rules for how to handle the interaction between players once you are no longer single. Perhaps future social games will include the option of marking “in relationship” to alert other gamers not to get too chummy with a specific hero or heroine…