Focus

Internet users wired for love

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-28 07:51

Millions of Internet users are "dating" and "marrying" online in China, even though they never meet their partners in person.

In a netizen survey conducted by www.21cn.com, 93 percent of respondents said they use the Internet for romantic purposes, more than 60 percent said they have dated someone online, and 35 percent said they currently have a cyberspace relationship.

The first Chinese Internet marriage website, called Virtual Family, started in March 2000. The popularity of Internet marriage has increased dramatically since then. The website reportedly had 100,000 "married" users by 2004.

The Beijing based www.ccice.com is another popular Internet marriage website. It had one million users as of January 2009, 10 months after it launched. The majority of the users are female, 20 years old to 25 years old, and the youngest user was only 16 years old.

Some users of these websites say it is just a way to release pressure, but others say it can affect their real lives, both positively and negatively.

"If the Internet users only consider their Internet marriage a game, it is harmless," said Sun Zhongxing, sociology professor at Fudan University.

But opponents of the phenomenon maintain that fictitious relationship may develop into real relationships and threaten real-life marriages.

Some Internet couples are familiar with many details of their online partners' real life, such as the color of their underwear. Conversations between virtual married couples are normally about sex.

According to a survey conducted by New Weekly magazine, more than 32 percent of respondents who have had a "one night stand" met their partners online, making the Internet the most popular meeting place for such hook ups.

A Beijing woman surnamed Li tried to sue her husband, who is surnamed Zhang, for bigamy at the Miyun court in early April, because Zhang married an Internet user named Venus online.

Li said her husband spends most of his free time with Venus in their online home.

The court rejected the case because the marriage between Zhang and Venus was not a real conjugal relationship. But the court ruled that if Li wants a divorce, Zhang is legally the partner at fault.

Zhao Yanrong