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Greenstorm Sep. 02 2004,18:33
I’d say the greatest threat to any IC marriage would be one of two things – or both:
1. Getting a REAL attachment to the other party, (not just a RP one) and
2. Indulging into Mudsex.
Over the years I've seen so much soap opera drama with players who couldn’t separate their real life feelings from RP, that it totally outweighs the rare cases where a couple actually found each other over the net, and moved on to a meaningful RL relation. Mostly the drama ensues when one party is roleplaying being in love and the other is mistaking this for real feelings. But I’ve also seen cases where a couple, who met on the mud, decided to meet in real life too, didn’t hit it off, and then let this poison their mud relation as well. Quite often the entire mud is dragged into the turmoil, taking sides for one party or the other.
I’ve also seen cases when a couple of players that are together in real life start to mud together, and then one of them forms a mud relation with another player and the other one goes ballistic over it, again involving the entire mud in the drama. Or when the former happy couple breaks up in real life and then brings their bitterness and resentment into the mud.
The soap operas can be quite entertaining for the detached onlookers, at least at first, but it is certainly not fun for the parties involved – neither of them. Usually conflicts like this lead to one of the players – or both – leaving the mud, but not until after months of bickering, whining and weeping, and until the rest of the players are heartily tired of both parties and their endless tirades. It is probably a bigger problem in small muds, but then again, most intense RP muds are pretty small.
As for mudsex, I personally find it rather tacky, but that’s not the point here. I am not going to take any moral stance against it; everybody is totally free to indulge in any sort of roleplay they may choose, as long as they are reasonably discreet about it. And as long as it is mainly acted out as a short-term fling, it might work out just fine. But it is usually the best way to kill a long-term relationship. Because after all, mudsex is not the real thing, and there are limits to what you can ‘perform’ on a text screen. Sooner or later one of the parties will tire of the little game, and that’s when the entire relation usually goes down the drain. This too often ends in at least one of the parties leaving the mud, to get out of a situation that has become embarrassing and/or boring. They might try to avoid the issue by secretly creating a new char, but if and when the identity of that char is revealed, the drama blazes up afresh.
And one more thing: Remember that things quite often are not what they seem on the net. That cute blond elf you just hooked up with might be a 15-year-old boy, pretending to be a girl. Or a 62 year old paedophile, stalking the net for prey. I am not saying this to spoil anybody’s RP fun. It’s just a reminder that things aren’t always what they seem.
So, try not to get your real feelings involved in the roleplay. And - be careful out there.
Always use protection. *snicker*
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