A Geek Love Story

At first, Second Life wasn't the solution. Hawkins thought it was awkward; Lillie found it hard to maneuver, and was creeped out by strangers who approached her. When she spotted Hawkins, though, she was intrigued. She clicked on his avatar to see his profile, where users post hobbies and photos. But it said only: "I like cheese." "I just thought that was so funny," Lillie says now. "I'd later find out he was this very shy, quiet man who'd expressed himself through his avatar." Psychologists say people use avatars to explore sides of themselves they aren't ready to share with the real world. Often, the lure is wish fulfillment. Hawkins is 5 feet 6 and bald, with a sweet, dimpled smile, but Joe Stravinsky—towering, regal and Goth—is how he sees himself on the inside, he says. "Of course, there are people who go into virtual worlds to deceive, but we felt like we could really be ourselves," says Lillie.

On their first official "date," Hawkins and Lillie spent 12 hours together. Joe took Heart to a hilltop castle. He led her to a massive fireplace, then pushed a secret button that teleported them into a velvet skybox with a huge red couch. "At first I thought, 'Oh, God, he's taking me to his lair'," Lillie jokes. "But he just sat back and I laid across his lap and we just talked."

That night, and many nights after, Lillie fell asleep thinking of Joe Stravinsky. She knows it sounds funny, but it's the only way she knows to describe it: she was hot for an avatar. And scientifically speaking, it's not so farfetched. Brain chemistry doesn't distinguish between the real and the virtual, so it's possible to fall in love with an avatar just as it's possible to fall in love with the idea of a person, says Jeremy Bailenson, a cognitive psychologist who studies virtual interaction at Stanford University. "How we emote, how we get aroused—it's all the same, real or virtual."

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 wakeup call. They'd moved the relationship from fantasy to reality, and suddenly they had to think about what that meant. Was this practical? Could it really work?How could you truly know a person's ins and outs if you've only seen him or herover the Internet? "There were times when I thought it couldn't last," says Hawkins, talking with NEWSWEEK via a three-way video connection. "Sitting next to a computer all day so you can be with this person, it's crazy," Lillie chimes in. "You neglect your housework, an outside life, and it becomes a very hard relationship."

Hardest of all is the impossibility of physical closeness. The Web is a hothouse for eroticism, but ultimately, touch is elemental. For a while, Lillie and Hawkins messed around with the seriocomic options available in Second Life, where in order to have sex, you actually have to go to a store and buy the parts. It's cheap, and the options are, well, limitless. But what no one has solved is a way for Lillie to feel Hawkins's body next to hers—and those senses shouldn't be understated. "The brain is built for person-to-person communication," says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University who studies the chemistry of love. "Just kissing somebody can give an enormous amount of information about them: the amount of pressure can show sensitivity, kindness or patience, the way they hold your head can show compassion."

It would be more than two years before Lillie and Hawkins got to have that kiss. But in 2007, Lillie got a call from a British television station that wanted to fly her to meet Hawkins as part of a Web documentary about lives on the Internet. She agreed (happily), and was soon on her way to London, not knowing whether to cry or be sick. She arrived at the airport, and spotted Hawkins immediately, grinning from across the terminal. They embraced, and their fears about that moment, whether it would be different, quickly faded. "As soon as we saw each other, we realized things were exactly the same," says Hawkins. They spent the next three weeks together, grocery shopping, cooking, hanging with family and friends—the ordinary things they couldn't ordinarily do. On their first night together, Hawkins proposed—with a ring engraved with CARIAD, the Welsh word for "sweetheart."

Back in Oxnard, Lillie's family met Hawkins for the first time last year. And though they were skeptical at first—it took Lillie more than a year to tell them about him—her mother and sister now squeeze into the computer room to wave hello to the video screen. Everyone, it seems, wants them to be together. But the odds of living happily ever after, in the storybook sense, are slim. Lillie wants to finish her degree, and can't uproot her girls just yet. Then there's the visa issue: Hawkins must prove he can support his fiancée—difficult on the modest sum he gets from the state to care for his son.

It's hard to sort through these tough issues when you're 6,000 miles apart. But for now, say the couple, Heart and Joe sustain them. They are endlessly optimistic—and others' skepticism makes them only more determined to emerge from all this together, in the physical sense. "Four years ago, Paul and I joined Second Life to fill the loneliness in our hearts, and we found what people search their whole lives for," says Lillie. "Yes, there's an Atlantic Ocean in between us, but we know we're meant to be together. So right now, this is as good as it gets." It's a crazy way to love someone. But turning back now would be even crazier.

© 2009