{"id":5358,"date":"2015-09-07T20:58:33","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T19:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=5358"},"modified":"2015-09-07T22:10:07","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T21:10:07","slug":"washington-post-wedding-reporter-suggests-getting-married-in-second-life-is-a-reason-to-call-a-wedding-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=5358","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post Wedding Reporter Suggests Getting Married In Second Life Is A Reason To Call A Wedding Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellen McCarthy is a wedding reporter for the Washington Post and she has published a book;\u00a0The Real Thing: Lessons for Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter’s Noteboo<\/a>k. This post is not going to be a review of the book, however there’s something in the book that stands out for virtual world enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

Number 10 in the top ten reasons to call a wedding off is :<\/p>\n

Your avatars got married in Second Life and that worked out, so you figure this will, too. It happened. I swear.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In isolation, this does not sound like a good reason to call a marriage off, indeed it’s not implausible for people to meet in Second Life and live happily ever after, it has happened, I swear. However if two people meet in Second Life and then decide to get married without spending any real physical world time together, that’s one hell of a gamble.<\/p>\n

However to just dismiss a marriage because people meet in Second Life would be somewhat churlish. Ellen McCarthy hasn’t just made this up, she has interviewed people who got married and therefore at some point, a Second Life inspired marriage must have appeared on her radar.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One of the things that’s odd about this is that many people now meet online, taking it to the next level is another issue, but there are heaps of dating sites where people make first contact, some more to the point than others, but that’s a different issue. Virtual worlds can most definitely play a part because although people are represented by avatars, they can engage in a more immersive experience than simply trading text messages.<\/p>\n

As virtual worlds get more immersive, there will be even more scope for them to be used as part of the wider dating world, so I don’t buy Ellen McCarthy’s reason as being a sound one, in many ways it’s a dated and stereotypical attitude.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ellen has support for her view, in the form of a review of the book by\u00a0Drew Gallagher over at Fredericksburg.com<\/a> :<\/p>\n

For instance, one chapter is titled \u201cTop Ten Reasons to Call It Off\u201d and reason 10 is as sound a reason as they come for not dipping your toes into marital bliss.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c10. Your avatars got married in Second Life and that worked out, so you figure this will, too. It happened. I swear.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I had no idea what \u201cSecond Life\u201d is, but I looked it up and confirmed it is a free online game featuring a virtual world where you can apparently hitch your avatar to another avatar and text and chat with one another. McCarthy has covered hundreds of weddings in her time with The Washington Post, but I don\u2019t think you need that kind of experience or a psychology degree to recognize that marriages in \u201cSecond Life\u201d probably don\u2019t equate to non-virtual-world compatibility.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ellen McCarthy \u00a0has actually had the experience of interviewing couples on subject matters such as this and therefore has more information on which to base her opinion than I have, but it seems a little shallow on the face of it. I’m sure there are plenty of people who are now in happy relationships having met in Second Life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ellen McCarthy is a wedding reporter for the Washington Post and she has published a book;\u00a0The Real Thing: Lessons for Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter’s Notebook. This post is not going to be a review of the book, however there’s something in the book that stands out for virtual world enthusiasts. Number 10 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Washington Post Wedding Reporter Suggests Getting Married In Second Life Is A Reason To Call A Wedding Off”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,14],"tags":[19,1046,1022],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6rJUK-1oq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5358"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5360,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5358\/revisions\/5360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}