My alt avi blues - maybe useful...

I'll throw in my own recent experience with alt avi blues for the hopeful benefit of others. My onetime sl partner of five months left me abruptly back in March, in what turned out to be a cloud of lies... (we'll shelve the issue of why I was so involved - that's another volume of the collected works of Virtual Psychology) - suffice to say, I felt very committed, and very happy. It appears I was quite fooled. Ex-woman seems to have been rather more experienced and devious than I, and apparently had, in what later turned out to be a clear pattern, scoped out her next partner-to-be for some time before leaving me. She partnered, using an alt, within a month. Quick work.

The interestingly Nixonesque sidelight was that the alt she used for this purpose was known to me by name, so a quick profile look was all I needed to see what was going on. Was she being dumb, or trying to provoke me? Bit of both, I guess. What a jerk. I came to discover later on that yes indeed, there were times when she was running both simultaneously, probably on two machines.

Was I naive? Sure. But the context was new to me - my personal world happens to be made of commitments that I generally keep. I was genuine. She wasn't. So - lesson learned. Hurt like hell. A lot of very kind and generous friends helped me through the aftermath, which shows up another side of SL as well...

The happy ending: I became very close with a dear, long-time friend, one of those who so kindly lent an ear while I dealt with it all. To those who say that virtual relationships aren't "real", all I can answer is: mine are.

The sad thing is, you never know whether the person you are with considers your relationship just part of the game that is SL, or for real. Sometimes they don't even know you have real feelings for them outside the context of the internet.


(in before SL is not a game)

can't they know if you tell them?
i mean if you say "you know i don't consider my feelings for you as just part of some online game of SL, but my feelings for you are real".. then.. emm? wouldn't they know?

i don't always understand how come it seems like grown ups don't talk about things all the way...

I think it's simple enough. Ask. Say - "is this roleplaying for you?" The emotional truth of how they genuinely feel will come out in their actions soon enough anyway.

The truly remarkable thing about this sad situation is how you have remained open to love in SL. Most people who had been burned as badly as that would simply have closed the door on SL relationships in toto -- and with some justification, because while not everyone is the kind of conniving witch that she was, nevertheless SL presents unique opportunities for people to royally misbehave and deceive, and it would have been perfectly understandable for someone, having been abused like that, to simply close the door and move on. Doubtless countless thousands of others who have been burned by people like that have simply decided to leave their RL feelings at the door before logging into SL, or have simply left SL altogether. But not you. And that has made all the difference.

Tori, hush! Resmod, arrest that woman! On second thought - I'll do it

I have little or no qualifications to discuss this, other than being a resident of SL, a woman, and one who has some relationships with others in SL who make me believe they are women.
I have tried a few test questions, but I'm still kinda new, and not very sure of what I am about.

I have to wonder- did you ask certain questions of one another at the outset? Did either mention they were not inclined to long term relationships?

I ask this because I am teetering at the brink of what could possibly be something very serious with another SL res. My mind says "NO"- my heart says "GO"

And I thought I was free of that crap, thought I had left it RL - silly me

Hi, Marnee

I'll step in here since I have (1) had a lot of experience with online relationships since the late '80's on IRC and (2) am currently celebrating one year with my online SL partner.

The two HUGE things I will say, most of which I learned the hard way are:

*As has already been stated, have open, honest conversations about what each of you are looking for in a relationship (SL only; SL exclusive or can each partner "play" as well; possibly going to RL, etc.) People can still lie and say what you want to hear if they get their kicks out of being deceptive, but at least you know you did all you could.

And don't ask just once. Ask the questions many times and in many different ways. If the other person starts getting irritated or annoyed, I personally would back off. Someone with honest intent won't mind answering questions and should be asking you some too.

*This is the main one - TAKE YOUR TIME. "Most" of the times I have experienced or seen others' relationships go down in flames were when the relationship was rushed. Time is compressed online depending greatly on how much time people spend together. On IRC there was a saying that 1 month of online = 1 year RL. I'm not saying that's true, just that things can happen quickly online, especially where the heart is involved.

Taking time to REALLY get to know the other person is always a good idea.

My partner and I spent on average 10 hours a DAY when we first met. (We were both new to SL and our lives are such we could spend that much time online.) We got partnered after 4 months. This still sounds like a short amount of time to get to know each other, but in our case the vast amount of daily time worked in our favor. If a couple can only spend say 2 hours/day together, that's a bit different.

My 2L for what it's worth

Perhaps I've got a bit of a strange perspective on all this, insofar as I'm usually cleaning up the land mess after things go poorly. Anything from trying to soften the financial blow of rapid departure for one or both parties if I can, to 'alt identity protection programs' or land swaps or any such similar measures.

It's not pretty, and with a few exceptions, one could almost set a stopwatch by how long these things go. There are also seemingly 'disaster days' - Christmas and Valentine's are big ones; the onset of spring is pretty nasty too.

It's rather like college in a lot of ways! Cold weather and falling leaves bring people together in the fall; things progress a bit; Halloween, the ski trip, the fun holiday season party or two. Then hearts and flowers turn into bickering by late winter as the dream falls away and the real person, with flaws and former baggage intact, comes painfully into focus.

As such, online situations as typically halted, interrupted or otherwise partial fulfillment in just about every case. Why? Because there is something holding one or both parties back from just plain meeting up in reality.

It could be geographic distance, finance, social circumstance... whatever. Very, very few people are totally fulfilled with static online situations. Within three to six months, they want either 'more' or 'less' - sometimes a lot less.

Perhaps it's a cherished situation where neither online party would give up the other, but at it's core: often a deep, profound unfulfilled sadness. Fulfilled people are typically at home staring blankly at the television together, or perhaps online with each other as a sort of far more casual hobby.

Regardless, I wish everyone happiness, whatever the situation. Tis not for me to judge.

Can't you have real feelings for someone, yet still keep them within the confines of SL?

As much as I dislike generalizations, it seems to me, that most relationships in SL happen so rapidly in such a short period of time that they are doomed to failure. How can you get to really know the other person in a very short period of time. I'm sorry, but it doesn't make much sense to me, that a person wouldn't take as much care in deciding to form an emotional attachment with someone that they've met in SL as they might in RL. After all, The attachment is not with the avatar, it's with the person behind the avatar. Regardless of what some might say, the feelings are real.

I met the person who is now my SL partner on my second day in SL. We saw each other frequently in-world and had long talks before there was any mention of any kind of relationship other than being friends. It took a month and a half to reach that point. It took another five and a half months before we decided to become partners. We have been partners now for a little over a year and a half.

Not sure what that has to do with anything. Just expressing my opinion.

In my experience, yes.

I know there are always exceptions, but I truly believe in RL & SL there is a positive correlation between the time and effort a couple took getting to know each other prior to marriage/partnership and the length of time they remain together.

QFT

My sense in looking around at people is that this is more or less generally correct. The number of people who are interested in an online only relationship which has a deep emotional connection/commitment to it seems rather tiny, based on my personal experience over the last five years or so with this kind of thing. Either they want to take things full bore into RL, or they want to keep things very light and inconsequential and online -- it's very rare to find someone who genuinely wants something that is both emotionally intimate/committed and online only. We exist, but there aren't many of us.



This is a tad harsh, it seems to me. People find themselves in varying situations in the physical world. Ties exist of family, profession, friendship, social circle. Parents and children. Perhaps the kinds of relationships that are available to them in a world like SL are either not available to them in RL at all, or would come into their RL at such a tremendously disruptive cost to all of their RL context, that bringing them into their RL would be exactly the opposite of fulfilling. I would rather agree that two people who choose to have a committed relationship which is online only are each not completely fulfilled in their RL situations if you look at their RL situations in a vacuum ... but it doesn't follow at all that they cannot be quite fulfilled by the *mix* of their RL and SL situations. For people for whom the kinds of relationships available in SL would be tremendously disruptive to their RLs, for example, a deeply committed SL relationship can add tremendously to the fulfillment of their lives *overall*, added to the context of family, profession, friendship, children et al. Now, that may not be the case for all that many people (I tend to agree that the number of people who are interested in this is quite small, based on my own personal experiences with it), but it doesn't follow that it isn't the case for anyone.



This is certainly true. I have also found that taking a more measured approach leads to greater success. That is, in relationships where I have spent countless hours upon hours with someone (talking 8-10 hour stretches as a rule, ,and not just at the very beginning of the relationship), this was simply not sustainable, created warped expectations of what was normal in the relationship and eventually ended up subverting things. I've found situations where I see the other person regularly for a couple of hours at a stretch to lead to much more sustainable, constant growth and success. In online relationships, it's very easy to fall into the trap of spending 10 hours at a stretch together because the RL friction isn't present in SL -- but I think this only speeds things up unnaturally, while at the same time creating unsustainable expectations.

Also, as with anything else, it's important to retain an overall balance in your life. Get proper sleep. Get proper exercise. Eat properly. So many people who are deeply engaged in online things do neither of these three well, and that also subverts things and makes things much less sustainable, just from the physical point of view. This can be tricky because we can tend to want to cut corners here, especially when our emotions are involved, but it's almost never a good idea to do so.

QFT!!

Excellent point! Any type of online activity, from IRC chat to the MMORPG's to SL) can be very addicting. When emotions become involved, even moreso.