‘Great love is a lot like a good memory, when it’s there, and you know it’s there, but it’s just out of your reach, it can be all you can think about. And you can focus on it and try to force it, but the more you do the more you seem to push it away…. But if you’re patient and you hold still…. well maybe…..just maybe….It’ll come to you’
-Leonard Church, RvB
I was inspired to write this article after joking with fellow alliance members. We were talking about sending stealth bombers on missions to drop cans filled with flowers and chocolates to the home stations of people we were at odds with on this, the day when hearts turn to love, and the softer side of our natures comes forth to celebrate how we feel about those we share intimate ties with. This did set me thinking however! Internet dating is common enough. There are other MMO’s out there where the whole romance stuff is pretty common, think Second Life or World of Warcraft, games that we Eve players mostly scoff at. So I did some googling, and a bit more googling-to find out that no one has in fact really mentioned that in an MMO as big as this, that the subject of love is rarely, if ever discussed, well not openly at any rate!
Now of course, this is Eve-the harshest of harsh mistresses, I do not think, especially with the demographics of male to female players, let alone the numbers of LGBT players being what it is, that any sane person comes to Eve Online looking for a prospective partner. There are many players who do get introduced to the game by a partner-myself included! Eve is the only thing I can thank that particular ex for as it happens in the short time we were together. Naturally I know nothing about how that proteus had an unfortunate demise… But what intrigued me was looking at relationships that flowered, or died for that matter within Eve itself.
While I was researching this article, I knew the stories were out there, but because of people’s fear about being trolled or being made fun of, they keep things hush hush, even within their own corps. Getting people to open up and discuss the subject has been harder than I had anticipated. I did find though that once people knew I was genuinely looking for a human interest story, they began to quietly approach me and start whispering their experiences.
For every heartfelt romance-things can and do go wrong!
Pharaik-A good friend of mine played EVE for several years, and met a girl in a corp we were hired to protect, they got talking and eventually met up, they had a long term relationship for a good two years. They eventually broke up, she logged into all three of his Eve accounts, trashed all his ships/items and gave away his ISK then deleted his characters while he didn’t have access to a computer.
After a long hard battle with the devs, she got all her characters banned and his characters brought back from the dead, but the devs refused to give him any isk, items or ships back. He was playing since 05 till 10 thats alot of Isk and gear to lose, unsurprisingly he doesn’t play anymore.
And some people doubt!
‘Well how about that, you learn something new every day – online dating in the gaming community.
I highly doubt I’m going to meet someone on EVE. In fact, I highly doubt I’ll meet someone I can find interesting for longer than two minutes in the real world before I’m back to work, studying, or… well… playing EVE. Women don’t like me. Actually, people don’t like me. I’m strange.
But that’s okay, because I don’t like people’
Bless you my friend, I’m sure at least your Mum loves you?
This next statement gave me pause for thought though, because it did resonate with me, particularly because Eve is associated with being such a tough, unforgiving place!
Merouk Baas-I believe people keep their relationships secret, because bad things can happen if you link any bit of personal information to the internets. Different game, a dev posted just their real name, and within a few hours his home address, email accounts, and phone numbers were found and spammed.
This IS that day, when we spend far too much money on fancy meals and cards. However there are some very genuine Eve love stories out there that share a similar pattern, which generally includes a great deal of hard work, long, long distances and often language barriers, visa problems and family objections, but we denizens of New Eden are made of stern stuff and are nothing if not determined!
Lasairiona’s story-
I met Ozzie back in 2007 when I started playing Eve. He lived in Scotland and I lived in California. I was with my ex-husband at the time. Over the next two years, we became friends and started to speak nearly every day. Around January 2009, my relationship with my ex started to fall apart. During that time, Ozzie was a great support. He encouraged me to continue to make things work. One evening I was speaking to him and I said, “Do you like me, more than friends?” He said, “Heather, not only do I like you…..I think I love you.” Over the next four months, we communicated via MSN and webcam until April 2009 when I flew to Scotland for the first time to meet him. I stayed for two weeks and then flew home. He came to see me in California in August 2009 and proposed. I, of course, said yes! The following months were filled with sorting out my visa application, saying goodbye to friends and family (who thought I was nuts, by the way), and packing to move to Scotland. I arrived in December 2009 and we were married on February 8th, 2010. On June 17th, 2011, we welcomed our son, Alex.
NightCrawler 85 and her partner Zendane.
In 2007 i was bored out of my mind and decided to join the recruitment channel (I was a recruitment director back then as well). By chance Zendane (who is a paramedic) had decided to get back into the game after going through a divorce, and was sitting at work, on his birthday I might add unable to sleep, thus being online at the peak time for EU players. I should add in that he lived in California and I lived in Norway. It’s also worth mentioning that at the time I was in a long term relationship.
Well, Zenda posted his ad about looking for a corp, and something about his avatar really caught my attention! During a mining op he told me his story. He never gave any hints or indication that he was after something more than friendship.
I broke up with my ex, and then travelled to the US, we agreed to meet! The irony is, is that both of us had insisted there would never be anything romantic between us, but well you know how it is..starts with a massage, by the end of the week you’re missing all your clothes! Playing games together helped cement our relationship, although we had occasional problems with the ‘you’re only a director because you’re in a relationship with the CEO’ . Making things work because of the distance, planning where to live and packing your life into a few bags to move across the globe.
And fast forward to the wedding!
So for you…my lonely neckbearded basement dweller, that posts weird Japanese porn in local, you know the stuff…involving octopi and beetles, whilst sitting in fleet bored waiting for a Titan bridge…there may be hope yet! Even for you… to find that elusive magic…Happy Valentine’s Day!
