Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > March > 16 > Entry
Core Conversation: Love in the Cloud: Online-Only Marriages
Dates/Time: 11:30 a.m. Monday
Panelists: Todd Moy (Senior User Experience Design, Capstrat); Margot Carmichael Lester (Owner, The Word Factory)
The gist: Life is easier with a partner. But what if that partnership is online? Seems hard to keep a relationship going on 140 characters (the Twitter message limit), but traditional marriages have overcome the strain of distance (especially now with our busy, busy schedules), so what makes online-marriages so doomed? Will they ever be legitimate?
Lester was clear that most online-marriages are not exclusive. Many have real-life relationships, too, with partners who don’t mind their virtual union; however, these relationships are often monogamous in that world, she said.
They often develop on dating sites or in chat rooms, and more and more on virtual-world games like Second Life, where user-generated avators walk around and socialize in real-time, she said.
Quotes: “How do you take your online-date to a dinner party? And what do you tell your mom?” (Moy); “By 2015, two percent of the population will have an online-only marriage” (Lester); “I’m not having sex with a robot!” (Attendee).
Takeaways: More questions than answers:
—Will insurance companies ever recognize these marriages?
—Are couples in online-only marriages inadvertantly taking themselves out of the gene pool?
— Marriage has evolved from political unions to romantic love. Will the next evolution be intellectual partnerships void of touch?
— How important is physical presence? Is it possible to virtually replicate body language or touch?
— What’s worse: physical or emotional infidelity? Should you feel guilty for a one-night (chat) stand?
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