This Couple Who Met On Neopets As Children Fell In Love And Got Married

January 17, 2018 9:16 PM

Kristin, who's now 29, joined a role-playing guild on the site called the "Evil Jellies." There she met Michael Andrews-Karr, a then-10-year-old user from Ohio whose pseudonym on Neopets was "Doctor." Michael is now 27.

Kristin made a reddit thread about this on their 4th anniversary

Note that the official neopets faq has the following to say about dating:

Q. My pet really wants to date another pet. Is there a guild or a way to allow my pet to date?
A. Neopets IS NOT a dating agency for you OR your pet! This means you cannot ask for dates, neo-marriages, dating/mating websites, dating guilds or dating role play. Do not discuss how sexy you think you are or someone else is. Simply put, you cannot engage in romance role playing of any kind on Neopets.

posted by Cozybee (16 comments total)

Ok, so how is it fair that the rules apply to some and not others then?
posted by oceanjesse at 9:57 PM on January 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

As a neopet, I live with this double standard every day.
posted by fleacircus at 10:52 PM on January 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

Even the thought of marrying someone who knew me at age 10 makes me shrivel away to a husk of embarrassment, so radioactively mortified that it requires containment in a spikey concrete sarcophagus emblazoned THIS IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR, and it is my ghost that is typing this comment now.
posted by No-sword at 11:09 PM on January 17, 2018 [44 favorites]

Awwwwwww! They are totes adorbs.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:45 PM on January 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Even the thought of marrying someone who knew me at age 10 makes me shrivel away to a husk of embarrassment

YES SAME ideally everyone who knew me at age 10 thinks i am dead now, i have worked very hard to give this impression
posted by poffin boffin at 12:12 AM on January 18, 2018 [25 favorites]

Honestly this is the cutest thing. I need more happy stories based on places like neopets, Wajas, furry paws. There was such an amazing community of creative young people.
posted by Braeburn at 2:07 AM on January 18, 2018

I’m pretty sure I “married” someone named Kylez on the Freezine kids message board when I was 12 circa 1999 and boy am I glad that union didn’t stick.
posted by third word on a random page at 2:30 AM on January 18, 2018 [3 favorites]

I still have a lot of friends I originally met on Neopets. We were all adults at the time (some more than others), and to find our own niche within this kids game, we had a guild just for people over 21 (with flexible rules - 18-year olds were also allowed). Most of the daily conversation happened in a Yahoo Group, and we'd often just go there to chat about whatever, instead of actually playing the game. I'm still in touch with about 7 or 8 of my friends from back then. Mostly online (I may even have brought some of them to MetaFilter) but we also meet up in person if we happen to travel through each others countries/cities.
posted by easternblot at 3:17 AM on January 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

This story is adorable. I remember my youngest boy playing NeoPets years ago. He was so mad when someone tricked him into giving away some valuable pet or treasure or something.

I hope that wasn't one of the Evil Jellies.
posted by maurice at 3:39 AM on January 18, 2018

I see into this couple’s future, because my 12 year old suddenly developed an interest in how his father and I met, and so I recently found myself explaining “A game like Minecraft but only in words,” 2400 baud modems, and what a Weyr is. Hopefully Neopets age better than PernMUSH.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:01 AM on January 18, 2018 [14 favorites]

I met my wife on WoW. We had known each other for about a year and a half before we met. But this is a *really* long time for a relationship to gestate.
posted by Talez at 5:53 AM on January 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Who were you on PernMUSH, warriorqueen? I'm also a Pern vet, in fact, that's where my user name is from.
posted by tavella at 7:48 AM on January 18, 2018

I recently went to a wedding where a huge chunk of the guests were really good friends but had never been in the same room with each other, owing to WoW. We had a good time.
posted by crush at 8:11 AM on January 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is the new “marrying your childhood sweetheart”, in that some will find it totally adorable and feel jealous at the perfection of it, whereas others will be filled with a suffocating sense of horror at the very thought of it.
posted by acb at 8:39 AM on January 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm not married to any of them (I'm not, in fact, married to anyone at all, but incidentally I met my boyfriend at a MeFi IRL meetup), but I'm still in touch with friends I made via internet communities when I was 12 and made my first Yahoo email address. They're wonderful people who were dear friends at a rough time in my life, and who I'm really happy to still be in touch with. I love this couple's story because I see a lot of myself in it, and it delights me.
posted by capricorn at 8:39 AM on January 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

I wondered, Tavella. :) It was Shandra, in fact.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:11 AM on January 18, 2018 [1 favorite]