The whole A/S/L Thing

Once upon a time, when I was new to SL someone walked up to me and said ASL? Having never been an AOL subscriber I still knew what it meant but it seemed so out of place in Second Life that I had no idea how to answer.

Nowadays I occasionly get asked where I am from, and when I answer Vail, they respond "cool, that's in Colorado isn't it?". When I tell them I have no idea since I have never been to Colorado the conversation ends rather quickly.

Why does anyone care where someone else is from? Why do they care how old they are? Why do they care what gender they are? What is the deeper meaning of life?

I suppose it's like "How are you?" in a way. Part of the social routine, whether someone does or does not care. In a society so filled with statistics, maybe it's just become part of what's commonly exchanged. I've long enjoyed the more humorous answers to the A/S/L thing, tho.

A--Old enough to worry about it?
S--All taken care of.
L--I *never* tell my true location. If I did, I would be mobbed.

Sorry that it troubles you, Susie. While it is good to be cautious, I think these questions are innocuous. At worst, they are an updated version of, "come here often?"

^^^
Location: Texas, USA, West. Hemi., Earth
teehee

I never got the whole A/S/L thing either. You don't say that in real life, why would you online? It never made sense to me.

You only know all of these *wicked details* because we have met IRL.

OK. You don't know my age.

I am 37. Is that better, Paolo?

A/ old fart who still hasn't found the need for Viagra

S/ see above

L/ if you don't know then you need Viagra

"ASL?"

I usually chalk it up to fishing for fantasy and/or sex. Otherwise, such questions would actually be typed out instead of reduced to that horrid netspeak ... sometimes even as part of a conversation!

Maybe it's because they want to talk to real people instead of cartoon figures, and in the real world it's usually obvious what age and sex you are
As for L, the question most people ask when calling someone on their mobile is "where are you?", so I guess it's pretty understandable.
What I don't get is why people are so critical of standard introductions on the internet. Don't you give your name when you meet someone IRL?

I sometimes ask where people are from, never age or gender tho.. I usually only mean which country.. Sometimes its because of peoples spelling I wonder if english is their first language.. Sometimes to build up a picture, sometimes just to make conversation.. I usually know which country my friends are from, just usually not the State/County..

Because, in real life, these things are somewhat self evident.

With certain exceptions, you can tell what gender someone is... even over the phone.

With certain exceptions, age can be told to some degree, even over the phone.

Even location can, to an extent, be determined, even over the phone... accents, for example.

In person, of course, all of this is much easier.

In a purely textual medium, however, most of these clues (Voice pitch, accent, things like that) don't come through...

I think people feel a little "lost" talking to some people, if they are new to the internet 'style' of communication... which most AOL users are, on a permanant basis.

The A/S/L thing is partly just a way to get your bearings.

In some chat rooms, it's also a targeting system, but we'll avoid that particular issue for now.

26 / M / Lisbon, Portugal

When I chat with someone, I like to know their age and where they are, so I can understand them a bit better. It helps knowing someone's age because you can better relate if you know it's someone younger than you (meaning you take into account their basic lack of some life experiences that you may have had already and there aren't as many misunderstandings. Or if it turns out they are under 18, but over 13 you know enough not to bring up certain subjects or joke in certain manners.)

I don't really care if you are male or female as long as we get along and have fun talking to each other.

I used to have a map with a push pin for my friends that I chatted with regularly in yahoo a long, long time ago. It was kind of cool to look at the map and see where everyone was (or so they told me lol)


For the record, I am 29, pregnant female, and in Northern CA. I'll be 30 in September. And my favorite color is pink and I like to sleep all day if I could get away with it. Those damn kids wake me up and demand horrible things of me...like breakfast and diaper changes. *sigh*

ya know, after I tell them my age is 327 and explain that there isn't really a concept of gender on my planet, they rarely stick around for the location part!

I and the other listeners of Coast 2 Coast would love to know the where!

The only reason I can think of, is because the person has one thing on his/her mind or what not. Not to actually try to converse, cause it seems those kinds of conversations only go in one direction and we all know what that is. I just found it funny, I always could usually tell if the person was a male/female etc etc just by talking to them. I guess some people hadn't picked up that skill yet.

Why is it that everytime the a/s/l question is asked the first thing that comes to a person mind is that they are a sex pervert. So far in sl I have not asked that question except to a few good friends who I have gotten to know for a longer period of time. I'm sorry but now all men are out there looking to put the make on someone. I am 62, been happily married for 42 wonderful years, to the most wonderful woman in the world and consider myself extremely lucky to have her with me. I am not on the prowl. I see nothing wrong with knowing a little something about the friends you make in SL. If you do not want to release that information just tell them like it is....."I keep RL and SL separate, and would not like to release that personal information" rather than coming out with some smart.... type remark.

I may be new to SL but have been around the internet in various program (Games, and Chat for over 30 years) and this a common question that gets asked. Most polite people just come out and say "I would rather not disclosed that information) and go on.

It's not just men that ask the question, George.

I've been asked that several times by both male and female AVs, though I have no idea (nor do I care) what gender they are in real life.

The most recent time I was asked, I asked the girl why she was asking. Her answer was that since my name was Jon (not everyone knows Jonquille is a flower, and a female name) she assumed I was male and wearing a female av for 'the lesbian thing' like other guys do. :/ Umm, no, but thanks for the interest.

I don't always associate the question with something sexual or someone looking to hook-up though, I think for many people it's just something conversational to say. My usual answer is just that it doesn't make any difference.

After reading the replies I can see that many ASL'ers see it as a conversation starter while others use it as a starting point to attempt to get some real life action.

Either way is fine with me if that is what people want. Maybe I am weird but I see Second Life as just that. A Second Life disconnected from First Life.

Should I be responding to these real life enquires by giving out my address and phone number?

location isn't so important but can be.

i like to know who i'm talking to so i can cetgorize them appropriately when it comes time to marginalize their opinion.

Hrm... personally, if someone were to walk up to me and ask the ASL question, then I'd assume they were a teenager from AOL. I wouldn't know if it were true or not, but then, I wouldn't care. That person has already told me all I want to know.

In any case...

Age: 2 years, 5 months.

Sex: Yes, fairly often
(subtype Gender: Female, well, most of the time anyway - that's the nice thing about SL)

Location: Er, look at the location bar at the top... you can read it as well as I can... or possibly Zazi.

And if you meant RL, well... only people who it matters to get to find that out. Otherwise, why not make our avatars look, sound and move like our RL selves.

It is sometimes useful to know where somebody is, to judge what timezone they're on. If I wake up and log into SL, I often meet people on PST for whom it is past midnight. It's nice, if not vital, to know whether they are just about to fall asleep or have all the time in the world or might have to go and get lunch in a minute. Perhaps just "GMT -8h" or "SLT +3h" etc would be more useful - I always screw up working out what time it is for people in Australia or Japan.

Everything else, I don't think is anybody's business unless I choose to tell them. I understand that for some people it's just like "hi, how are you?" but I try to SL with as little reference to my day-to-day life as I can. Luckily nobody has asked me yet.

You have to admit, asking "how's the weather" inside SL is not the world's best conversation starter.

I've never been asked A/S/L nor do I know anyone who has. I do know female AVs that do put fictive "Partners" in their profile as it cuts down considerably on the frequency with which they get come ons in-game. It seems to be even more effective than wearing a wedding band in an RL bar from what I hear.

I hasten to point out that wearing a wedding ring in a tavern has the *opposite* effect of what you are thinking.