So the Wall Street Journal featured an article recently on the painful human consequences that may come from living part of one’s life in a virtual world. The graphic on the left, courtesy of the Journal, pretty well maps out the bizarre love triangle featured in the story, but let me give you the quick and dirty: Ric Hoogestraat has an avatar on Second Life named Dutch Hoorenbeek, and that avatar is married in-game to Tenaj Jackalope, controlled by Janet Spielman. Ric’s rl [real life] wife, Sue Hoogestraat, isn’t happy.
Why? He plays, like any of us who’ve been addicted to an MMO game will recognize, like Second Life is his first life. He works there — he’s made a bunch of mula online (a million in a half in-game money, which is about 6,000 USD) running a virtual strip club — and he plays there: he takes motorcycle rides, smokes and drinks, and, well, enjoys his virtual wife.
Yes, I said that to imply salacious virtual sex, and I think the story implied it as well, even if it didn’t come out and say it. But I mean “enjoy” in a more platonic and important sense. According to the story, Ric and Janet never intend to meet in real life or extend their communication beyond Second Life. But why would they need to? Mr. Hoogestraat is on as much as he can be, and when he does log on in the story, several other avatars messaged him, wondering what took him so long to get on. His virtual wife was the first to message.
In short, he’s using Second Life for all of his important human activity: work, play, and social interaction. He spends more time communicating with his virtual wife than his corporeal one. And as for other activities, the story seems to imply that, due to some health problems, maybe Mr. Hoogestraat isn’t the physical specimen he once was. Some activities might be beyond him for the moment. But not in Second Life. Dutch Hoorenbeek has flowing, grayless hair, six-pack abs, and a virtual cock. He’s good to go.
The article asks the question “Is This Man Cheating?” If we’re talking about a heteronormative, monogamous relationship, I don’t think there’s a question. He is. His mind and soul are in Second Life. He’s built the life there that he can’t quite have in our world.
Now, he’s tried to interest his wife in SL, and she could not be less interested. So there is an aspect of this that reads like Mr. Hoogestraat has found a hobby that Mrs. Hoogestraat simply isn’t interested in. If he liked hockey or building cars or model trains or playing Magic: The Gathering or a hundred other hobbies, and spent inordinate amount of time pursuing them, we wouldn’t call that cheating per se. We might say he needs to get his priorities straight, but we probably wouldn’t say his hobby amounted to infidelity. The trick is this: you don’t have sex with hockey games. You don’t share your hopes and dreams and fears with your Magic cards. You don’t “pretend” to marry your model railroad set.
In all those other instances, you may or may not engage in social interactions with people: but there is always a content to the hobby itself. In Second Life, there is content too: building things in-game, for instance. But he’s not just building. For Mr. Hoogestraat, the most important content of the game is the human interaction. Second Life is serving as a surrogate for his first life: which, truth be told, and with apologies to the Hoogestraats, doesn’t sound so great. And so, if Second Life is replacing the needs he normally has for human companionship, and if he has made a commitment in his first life to be a loving companion to someone else — say, through marriage vows — then the former is in obvious conflict with the former. He is reneging on his marriage commitment.
People divorce. People grow apart for different reasons. If he can no longer keep the promises he made, and has found a way to be happier through a different kind of relationship, then Mr. Hoogestraat should consider doing the right thing and divorcing Mrs. Hoogestraat. But he shouldn’t, as he does in the WSJ story, say “It’s just a game.” It’s most definitely not. It is the place where he has found comfort and solace and human warmth during a difficult time in his life (read the story if you haven’t to read just how difficult). Even if he abandons it all later and comes back to Mrs. Hoogestraat, begging her forgiveness for neglecting her these many months, there’s no doubt that he was getting his needs as a person met in Second Life and not from her. His play is an act of infidelity.
Posted by Carlos 
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