Players rushed out to wed the first person that had the money to marry. Often this led to people realizing that the people they associated with in-game were people that they didnt really want to be associated with.

The online gaming world is filled with things to discover, far away places, interesting creatures and wonderful treasures. In the game Final Fantasy XI, players of the MMORPG could even get married.

What a unique online experience.

I remember when SquareEnix announced that there would be the possibility for characters to get married. I ran my character straight over to my roommates and demanded that he marry me.

This plan failed after seeing that weddings in the game were quite expensive, the wedding got us almost nothing. I suppose it helped that our interest in the game, which was already waning.

But we did play for a few more months and during that time we were privileged to see a number of articles and hear a few accounts of people hating their in-game marriage. They described the experience as a complete piece of crap that was purely in the game for no other reason other than to waste money.

Players rushed out to wed the first person that had the money to marry. Often this led to people realizing that the people they associated with in-game were people that they didnt really want to be associated with. Somehow people would just marry these really annoying players who would drive you nuts.

Then came the glorious 14-year-old boy panic of, oh my god the in-game female player I married is not a female in real life. Oh, that panic that young boys expressed about going through a fake marriage with another guy would make everyone in the entire world think that they were gay.

I laughed for hours over this. No one cared, not even up gamers.

In most MMORPGS players often do not play as their birth gender. I have just as many male characters as female characters in my online accounts. The whole point is the players get to create a new version of themselves. They get to experiment with putting on a new persona.

So what did this teach me about relationships? Well, that you need to find whats on the inside. I know how cheesy that sounds “ stay with me here.

In most video games the amount of player avatars are very limited in appearance. There are plenty of different options for each one, but you can never make a truly ugly character.

It takes a lot of skill to make an ugly character. I try. But no one will ever comment on how they look stupid and ugly you look. Its a weird experience where appearances are always deceiving. So a player needs to spend time with and get to know other players to really find the true person on the inside.

Online games also limit the other usual methods of stalling. You can easily find out what like and dislikes someone has by simple observance, but in a game you need to ask everything. It taught me to ask questions, something that I normally did not do.

In the end, the game taught me to find whats on the inside, just to dig really deep to see if your interest really is who you think they are. Once youve done that if they still resemble the person you thought they were, then kudos to you. You found something truly special.

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