Virtual foolin’ around is still foolin’ around.
There’s cheating in games, and then there’s cheating in games. The latter is what got a UK man in über hot water with his wife who filed for divorce after catching him having a virtual affair in the online virtual world of Second Life.
Amy Taylor, 28, met her prospective husband, David Pollard, 40, in an internet chatroom in 2003. Two years later, the couple got married. Several years into their marriage, Taylor caught her husband having virtual sex with an online prostitute in Second Life and hired an online detective to keep tabs on his character’s activities in the game.
“It may have started online, but it existed entirely in the real world, and it hurts just as much now it is over,” Taylor said of the virtual affair. “I went mad – I was so hurt. I just couldn’t believe what he’d done. I looked at the computer screen and could see his character having sex with a female character.”
Taylor said her husband did not engage in any extramarital encounters in real life, but she grew suspicious of his activities in the Second Life‘s virtual world. Earlier this year, she again caught him in an act of virtual infidelity. This time his avatar getting snuggly with another virtual female character in the game. “I caught him cuddling a woman on a sofa in the game. It looked really affectionate,” she said.
It turns out Pollard has been talking with an American female player in the game for several weeks, insisting his marriage was over and he no longer loved his wife. It was after this incident, Taylor filed for divorce, which is expected to be finalized this week. “We weren’t even having cyber sex or anything like that, we were just chatting and hanging out together,” said Pollard of his latest Second Life exploit. He said his wife got pissed when she found out, but he doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong.
As for Taylor, she’s apparently dating someone she met while playing World of Warcraft. Some people never learn.
