Brinda@Benares: Friendships & Relationships

Relationships in secondlife can be so very fulfilling. The upside... there is a bond we have that comes with shared experiences. I suspect that even experienced gamers come to Secondlife without much idea of just what is possible here. We make mistakes, we wear boxes (used to be default worn on our heads), we end up naked at a welcome area because we "replace" our hair instead of wear, we end up dancing and have no idea of how to stop, or in landing we splat down in front of a lot of people. Our shared experiences also include the things we learn with others. I personally have been very fortunate in having people in my Secondlife that first, were those oldbies, {Prissielou} that allowed me to feel comfortable and didn't laugh at me. Then along came Twinkle who rezzed just after me, while she taught me much of the basics here, we learned and experienced much of this world together and remain close to this day. She still teachs me...{think about teaching someone how to use HTML hyperlinks from 12,000 miles away!} When it became time to learn more along came Poly... while I got to Secondlife over a year before Poly, she was the one that showed me really how to run an estate, how to do things with a computer, how to feel some confidence in my abilities. Learning and teaching here are a big part of my Secondlife experience... I have relationships that are based on those experiences. Just today I was able to show a young woman how to do simple things like putting objects into a prim for storage... or Cntrl/Alt/T to find transparent. That's basic stuff... after some one shows you how! My new relationship with Gramps who's nearly six months here... how to make a one prim picture frame... how to select texture. There is a downside as well. Secondlife is very intense... I see it as creating a level of attraction that isn't as complete as we think it is. In our real life, as children we aren't considered responsible for our decisions and actions. The degree of that responsibility is normally related to our emotional age and that age isn't tied exactly to chronological age. As we "grow up" emotionally we learn to read subtle signals given off by people. We learn about the shifting gaze (shifty eyed ), or the stutter when suddenly confronted with a discrepancy in a story, the little clues that ring loud alarm bells for those of us that one of my aunts called people watchers,there or here. Of course those signals are hidden here in Secondlife... that long pause in answering could be lag... or multitasking. I'm reminded of a dear friend who fell so in love with an avatar. He seemed to be absolutely everything she dreamed of ...the love affair went on for months. Now this wasn't one of those things that happen all too often where the love affair came to and end when one of them found out that all those dragons in Cathedral really aren't dragons. My friend had spent hours and hours on the phone in real life with this guy, they had swapped pictures, he was just perfect.....until the day his real life wife called and suggested my friend forget the wedding. One can imagine the feelings of infidelity, emotional theft, and heartbreak. I worked with my friend for nearly a year to help her through those feelings. If I were to give any advice in the area of intimate relationships {as opposed to intimate friendships} in virtual worlds it would be just this......wait, give it a year, learn how this world works. Likely you won't. In that case please feel I'm still here... Come to me and we will talk... I will never tell you ,"I told you so!" *********