A Second Life Virtual Love Story

Last year, we looked at Second Life and how the members of this virtual world were dating and even having online weddings in the virtual universe (see Story). Newsweek is taking another look at Second Life and at the couple Lillie and Hawkins. Lillie lives in California and Hawkins lives half way around the world in Wales. Both have kids and neither have a lot of money. In fact, they have only seen each other in real life a total of three times.

Their life as a couple exists almost entirely online. In Second Life, they go on dates that would be impossible in the real world. They fly over cities and land on rooftops, go scuba diving on a moment's notice. Physical intimacy is out, but they use the technology to fake it as best they can. They hold hands. They kiss. Sometimes they have virtual sex. (It's possible—though they say watching their avatars knock boots is more comic than erotic.) Outside of Second Life, they use Webcams and Skype, the online voice-video-chat system, to peer into each other's worlds, even when they're just doing daily chores. At night, they hookup headphones, so that even while they sleep, they can hear each other breathing.

They both admit that the relationship is odd, but the romance does work for them.

The day after their digital wedding, Hawkins and Lillie saw and heard each other for the first time, over the computer screen. Hawkins's voice was soft and gentle; Lillie's warm and girlish. The connection, they say, was immediate—but it was also a wake up call. They'd moved the relationship from fantasy to reality, and suddenly they had to think about what that meant.

Obviously the hardest part for them was the physical component. In the end it took them more than two years before they would meet physically and have their first real kiss. This was back in 2007, when a British TV station flew Lillie to the US for free so she could meet her Second Life husband. It was filmed as part of a documentary about virtual lives on the internet.

For the full story of Lillie's and Hawkins virtual romance, read "A Geek Love Story" on Newsweek.