A British couple have divorced over a long-running saga involving their respective Second Life characters. It appears a woman scorned will forgive visits to a virtual prostitute but not genuine cyber-affection.

For those not in the know, Second Life is a virtual role-playing world where players create their own avatars and interact with one another in much the same ways as real life (just with added flying abilities).

The couple’s story is a confusing one, encompassing real and virtual worlds, and some media reports appear to have mixed-up the sequence of events. As best we can tell, here’s how it went down:

Amy Taylor and David Pollard met in an internet chatroom and later moved in together in Newquay, Cornwall. The pair then created Second Life characters named Dave Barmy and Laura Skye. When Taylor caught Pollard on the couple’s computer one day, she discovered ‘Barmy’ with a Second Life incarnation of a prostitute. Taylor was so angry she had the game characters break up, though the couple stayed together in real life.

To make things even more confusing, Taylor than had ‘Skye’ hire a character in the game playing a private detective to attempt to seduce ‘Barmy’. However, ‘Barmy’ turned down the advances and continued to praise ‘Skye’. In whatever universe Taylor inhabits, this proved Pollard was truly in love with her. The virtual couple got back together and wed in the game, while the real life man and woman also got hitched.

Neither pair lived happily ever after. Taylor later discovered ‘Barmy’ talking to another female character, ‘Modesty McDonnell’ in an ‘affectionate’ manner. While the characters had apparently not engaged in physical relations, Taylor felt Pollard’s virtual friendship was a real-life betrayal and the couple divorced.

Pollard is now engaged (in what passes for his reality) to the American woman who controls the ‘McDonnell’ character, while Taylor is in a relationship (of some sort or another) with a man she met through World of Warcraft.

And if you think that’s bizarre, the media response has been even weirder. After a satellite news channel broke the story, journalists immediately began trying to interview Taylor and Pollard with little success. The scoop instead went to two reporters from a regional British newspaper who had the bright idea of creating two journalist characters in Second Life and tracking down ‘Skye’ and ‘Barmy’.

The BBC, meanwhile, wondered how sex works in a virtual game, leading to perhaps the most unlikely paragraph to ever appear on its website:

You start off with no genitals and then you buy some. These objects can do all sorts of things. You can have ones that ejaculate at the right moment.

(Disclaimer: The Second Life character portrayed in the picture above is Moira Seelowe, an official mentor and guide in the Second Life universe. We at BLORGE would like to make clear Seelowe is not, and has never been, an adultress, mistress or previously-enjoyed companion.)

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Entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm under Internet.

Read more entries by John Lister.
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