MMOs are about creating your own character and playing that character, most especially not as yourself. Dating another person’s character as your character can get very tricky, but it can be done. Dating the person behind the character, however, isn’t advised. You might think you’ve gotten to know this person, but you’ve probably only gotten to know a particular projection of them as applied to the online environment.
First and foremost, what you see of another person speaks volumes before you even start a dialogue with them. How someone’s character avatar looks and acts, accumulates judgements on who the person behind the character is, just as somebody’s social media presence causes people to draw conclusions about them that might be very inaccurate. Online avatars are just as subject to social preconceptions as photographs, and should be equally treated. For example, a photograph as a profile picture will often be assumed to accurately represent the person it’s been taken of. However, we often pick our “best” photos, professionally done or otherwise, where we look the way we want people see us, rather than the way we look day-to-day. Avatars are even more malleable, usually representing something totally different than the reality of their creator.
The next question might be then, what is real? It gets tricky in online worlds. Profile pictures and avatars are experienced as actual objects in either sensory or nonsensory ways, even though they’re virtual. The problem lies in the fact that in an MMO, we have no choice but to treat avatars as authentic and real, even though we know they are fictional and often entirely separate from the person controlling them. Therefore, intimate relationships are all the more complicated, regardless of how honest either party might believe they are.
The online community within each MMO is different, however the rules that govern most of these communities affect how a character and player behave. For example, the common courtesy to not “steal the spotlight” and commit actions that interrupt other people’s playing so much as to turn all attention to one person. The guilty party is then viewed as a “noob,” or if it is known that they are quite experienced, as a griefer or somebody to be avoided. Both of these are quite significant assumptions based on a very simple behaviour. Especially when the label of “noob” has a great deal of social consequences, the worst of which is being taken advantage of instead of taught. Indeed, the patience that experienced players must have for n00bs is often expected, if understood as frustrating. In a more intimate setting, stealing the spotlight has similar social consequences. The player will be viewed as narcissistic or again, as a noob. Players who want to cultivate a good reputation in an MMO might act quite differently than they do in real life.
Furthermore, the social preconceptions are all the more obvious when they are broken in more significant ways. Rude usernames, for example, are tantamount to any anticipated behavior. If someone names their character “HugeCock,” other players are going to assume a great deal about the person or character. One such assumption might be that the player is only looking for sex within the medium of MMOs, or that they have an unbecoming sense of humor.
The social preconceptions involved with avatars, profile pictures, online social norms, and usernames are numerous and dangerous. Indeed, the very question of what part of the personality a person wishes to show us is true or false should caution any MMO player. As such, I strongly advise against dating someone you met in an MMO, unless it is your respective characters dating for role-playing purposes. Even then, be aware that not becoming emotionally invested and taking the relationship personally is extremely difficult with all of the aforesaid social preconceptions at play.