All alone without a girlfriend this weekend? Maybe you should join WoW.

I know what you’re thinking. As far as the non-gaming community’s concerned, World of Warcraft is not a turn on. Any guy that takes Gnomes, Orcs and Night Elves seriously ain’t exactly a Casanova or Rico Suave. Campaigns with bro-friendly Mountain Dew and commercials airing on the boobs/booze/brawls SPIKE network have done nothing to bump the MMORPG’s coolness, and while your level 75 Paladin might be boss in a raid, he’s not scoring you any tail at next week’s sorority kegger.

Female repellent WoW goes beyond being a royal cockblock. There’s a darker side to its bad rep with the fairer of the sexes:

How to stop your boyfriend from play World of Warcraft. My husband is addicted to internet based video games. World of Warcraft, Reason for Divorce. Women across the country blame online gaming for the death of real life romance. Severe cases of dependency have sent the healthiest relationships straight to Splitsville, and that’s no Facebook app.

But you know what? Chicks play World of Warcraft too. Chicks who like myths and magic just as much as the next LotR fanboy. And being the emotional creatures that we are, we are susceptible to romance.

WoW’s sausage fest days are long over, and as is the case anytime people of a certain age get together, hormones be ragin’. Inevitably, World of Warcraft has produced a generation of nerds that find love through MMOs.

While it may seem that only good can come out of gaming romance, this method of dating has its critics. In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve explored the various dimensions of love in Azeroth and condensed them into three chewable chunks: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good:

Even over the internet we can all get that warm, fuzzy feeling. MMOs play cupid, bringing together gamers who live too far away to meet by traditional means. Everyone on WoW shares at leats one common interest and the anonymity of the web can make flirting feel safer.

With its factions and guild structure WoW establishes an immediate sense of community. Players “whisper” messages within the game, have flings, and eventually many take the plunge and agree to meet in real life. The digital world provides a backdrop for people to get to know one another before they commit to anything serious.

In 2006 the original WoWmance between Rhovan and Delora proved that MMO couples are in it for the long haul; the Druid and the Hunter were married after meeting online and now have a child together. A few years later MMO Couples, a blog written by Gabrielle about her romance with fellow Night Elf Tofukiller, invited other players to share their tales of online love. Moved from Blogspot to WordPress last year, the site continues to publish mostly WoW-based stories.

In her first post Gabi writes:

It is very hard to pinpoint when the friendship turned into something more. I do remember being curious about him from the start. I started to ask him questions about his real life; what his name was, how old he was, what occupation he had, what he looked like. We soon talked about private things that happened in our lives as well, which made our friendship quite intimate. We played almost every day and whenever I saw the phrase ‘Tofukiller has come online’ in the chat, I felt an adrenaline shot run through my body. When he would start to whisper me, I felt even happier. Before I knew it, he was on my mind constantly and I could not help wondering and fantasizing what the guy would be like for real.

Like many couples, she and Tofukiller began as friends. The most successful relationships, WoW or otherwise, have a strong foundation. After relocating from Holland to live with Tofukiller in another country, Gabi believes the bomd they built in-game keeps them together.

I have personal evidence of a successful MMO connection. My own roommate and close friend Danielle, Limecat in the World of Warcraft, is in a long distance relationship with a man she met on WoW two and a half years ago.

Limecat and Daann first crossed paths when their guilds merged together. Both played as Druids at the time, Limecat a Moonkin and Daann a Bear, the new guild’s Main Tank. Just like Gabi and Tofukiller, they progressed slowly, first contacting each other only through WoW then moving on to the usual social networking sites.

Limecat says that WoW was the perfect place to develop a relationship, better than both MySpace and Facebook. Physically speaking to one another by way of headsets and working together during raids was a more personal experience for her than just messaging and emailing. Both she and Daann had the chance to meet each other’s real life friends who also played, so she felt more comfortable when they planned to meet after a few months of talking.

Danielle and Daann, whose real name is (Surprise!) Dan, live in separate states but visit whenever possible. They haven’t decided to move in together yet and are still taking things slowly.

Sounds pretty stable to me.

The Bad:

Those who disprove of online dating in really hate MMOs. To them gaming is anti-social, and the people who engage in MMO romance aren’t really acting as themselves. WoW is a fantasy world, and thus not an appropriate place to start a real relationship.

It’s not just psychologists and analysts that feel this way. Writes Mike Schramm on the WoW.com blog:

But in World of Warcraft, you’re playing a character. And even if that character isn’t completely different from your real-life persona…it’s still different enough, in my opinion, to be a significant barrier to actually judging someone as a relationship partner.

For some the separation from reality leads to a dependency on the game. As WoW fills emotional needs, ties to actual people become less significant.

Even those who celebrate gamer love lend to this stereotype. Almost half of the relationships featured on MMO Couples–including Gabi’s own–began when one or both of the parties involved was already in a committed relationship.

Gabi and the others insist that they were honest with their partners, and most of their relationships were already on the decline. “Falling apart” is a key phrase often repeated. While this may be true, their behavior does blur the line between fun flirting and what’s considered cheating.

Attempting to dismiss the cuckolding , Gabi devotes an entire post to what it means “To Be in Two Minds”:

Unless you believe in happy, so called open relationships in which polygamy is not an issue, meeting someone else while having a partner is in my opinion a very important eye-opener. You have come to a crossroad and need to decide which direction you take. Consequently you are forced to reflect on your relationship, and on yourself.

Gabi recommends communication above all else, and came clean to her live-in boyfriend before things with Tofukiller got too serious. It sounds good, but how’s this for irony: The person who introduced Gabi to WoW? Said boyfriend.

For me it’s simpler. Any chick who goes looking for online attention when they’ve got a perfectly good man on the couch can’t be all that happy with her relationship, but no guy deserves to have his girlfriend taken away by someone else’s avatar. Same with dudes. If you have a girlfriend, don’t flirt online. You bastards.

The Ugly:

I mentioned before that the anonymity of the Web can be a good thing for shy people–it allows them more breathing room and less chance for embarrassment. It can also be dangerous.

Let’s just say it. WoW avatars, minus Gnomes and Orcs and a few other races that seem to be missing a couple chromosomes, are sexy. But you’ve got to remember that there’s a real person connected to the image, someone who is far from perfect. I know it’s hard to imagine, but on the other side of the screen the bootylicious rougue you’re macking could be hiding man parts under her tunic.

Sometimes the confusion won’t go beyond a simple whisper.

“Hey Baby Nice boobies.”

“I’m a dude.”

“Grossssss”

Sometimes sickos will intentionally mislead other players. I don’t want to go all To Catch A Predator here, but it goes without saying to be careful. And don’t put all of your eggs into one basket before your sure that basket ’s isn[‘t helb by a mullet-equipped, teen-raping gym teacher. Unless that’s what’s you go for.

And then there’s the ones that jump headfirst into creepy situations without caution. Take the recent tale of 16-year-old Andrew Kane, who already knew the WoW girlfriend who traveled to Canada to meet him was a 42-year-old married mom, but asked his parents for a ride to the hotel she was staying at anyway.

Kane’s a young’n and although sixteen is the legal age of consent in Canada, cheating wife/bad mommy Lauri Price really should have known better. Kane apparently told her he was 20, but what business does a woman with a family have carrying on a relationship with another person, younger or not?

Yet again, an isolated instance generates negative press for a game that doesn’t need it. Stories like this are what force people to form their negative opinions.

The Verdict:

It’s my opinion that meeting people online, whether on a dating site or through an MMO, is no different than picking someone up at a bar or at the mall. There will always be a risk involved, and some kind of intelligence is required in order to make the right decisions.

Get smart, gamers! The only way to stop bad press is to keep it from happening. Just because gaming’s nerdy doesn’t mean it’s anti-social or wrong. WoW has plenty of stable players. We can’t let the creepers overshadow this. We need positive stories.

Danielle and Dan are one such happy ending. It’s a sappy holiday, so I’m about to go all romance movie on ya. No one can predict what will happen in their future, but whatever goes down, their story proves one thing: WoW can be the breeding ground for a real, healthy relationship.

Happy Valentine’s Day!