When all else fails, go play a game online. Sure, solitaire with a deck of cards is nice, but all those little things can promise you is a mountain of hearts and spades. On the other hand, if you try online gaming, you might gain some real heart in spades.
Kristy Kuch met her boyfriend online. They were both playing Mafia Wars, a mobster game on Facebook. It was never intended as a way to meet someone to love, but then again, how many things are there that work exactly the way they’re designed?
-I didn’t even really know what he looked like; we were just talking and talking and we got to know each other so well,- says Kristy. For her, love came in the guise of being in charge of a clan for a Facebook game. Other online daters find themselves on more -conventional- online dating sites, such as eHarmony or Christian Mingle, but online dating is flooding the love market–there were 54 million singles in the United States in 2012, and 40 million people (sadly, it’s possible that not all of them were single) have tried online dating. Together, Match.com and eHarmony.com have 35 million members, and Christian Mingle just hit its 10 million mark for niche sites. Other sites are gaining waves of popularity, such as Tinder, a sort of Hot or Not that matches people through a yes or no system. If you both say yes, your phones are connected so you can chat. One person says no, and there’s no connection. More men than women use online dating (Kurtz 2013) and one in three couples meets online. Compared to other online love stories, however, Kristy and her boyfriend Gary-they’ve been together three years-have a unique story. Yet it’s also one that’s becoming more mainstream because people are more open in general to finding love in the places they least expect it.
There are more singles using dating sites than aren’t using them, but that doesn’t account for the number of people who meet while playing communicative RPG games such as Mafia Wars and even World of Warcraft. Members of the games can talk for hours without sharing any contact or physical information, so it’s possible that they might get to know one another better than if they had met in person on a blind date at a coffee shop. At least when you’re playing Mafia Wars you don’t have to worry if your eyeliner is smudged.
Kurtz, T. Online dating looks like it could be “the love story of the future”. Retrieved on June 26, 2013 from wday.com/event/article/id/82221/.
