Does hearing RL stories in SL weird u out?

Once I share anything from my RL with someone I feel almost guilty and ashamed to do anything else but talk to them...
having no sl friends or job or home gives you so much more freedom to do whatever you want.

"Does hearing RL stories in SL weird you out?"

No, but some of the people in these forums do. Let's begin with ... Oh, he already knows who he is. And then...

Are you saying that once you share some RL info with someone you feel like you have to continue to be their friend? Or you would feel strange having more than a casual friendship with them after they know something about your RL?

I don't feel wierd about hearing about people's RL, though it is also fine if they don't want to share. I generally don't talk too much about my RL with anyone other than my closest SL friends. There are a few people whom I trust that know a great deal about my RL, and I know about theirs. I value those connections in the same way I would a friend whom I talked to face to face.

Does that answer your question?

As oppposed to?

Talking is what I do most with the vast majority of my friends here. I dance with a few and have a special someone that I'm more intimate with, but talking is what friends are for anyway. And I've shared some RL stuff with many here and it never weirded me or them out (at least I don't think it did).

ahhh RL..i remember hearing about RL once..strange,..mysterious...the stuff made of legends..never been there

~Lana

hearing normal stories freak me out when logged in...

With many of my regular friends and acquaintances, discussing RL is no big deal. There are levels of information that we share depending on how well known we are to each other, but I've never felt uncomfortable about hearing or sharing RL stories.

If someone I barely know tells me something highly personal, it would cause me to pause and wonder. That would be a bit odd to me, however, some people are just very very open. What I feel may be too personal, they do not. If it's not hurting me, then I just let them talk.

angel

Where do people get off actually being real people on the other side of the screen?

I thought you all were just forums-bots.

Do you mean that when you find out they're real, you no longer feel comfortable being yourself?
Or that when they find out anything about you and your RL, you aren't able to share your deepest, darkest desires with them?
Or that you prefer being friendless/jobless/homeless, as it is the only way you can 'play' SL guilt and shame free?

Other than SS#, phone #, bank account stuff... I don't have problem talking about my RL or listening to someone else's. I can even mention my Niece & Nephew, my sister, my fiancee, my job.... Hell! Even what town I live in (good luck finding it!)

Its all in how much info you care to divulge.

Yes, I'm dying to know where human tripods are born and bred

~Lana

According to his sig line, in someone's Mother's basement.

Not a bot, but I do think I'm beginning to get that forums-butt.

*Makes plans to walk more to fight the spread.*

Just requires the lack of toys to play with as a child

You type quite well for a blind person.

The Good Lord may have "shortchanged" me in the Vertical department, but he made up for it in the Horizontal Department.

I don't actually understand the OP's question either, but I would say that RL becomes a less appealing source of SL conversation topics as one gets more SL experience and SL topics to talk about. And I think this is kind of inevitable: at Help Island or the Welcome Areas, the newly-rezzed really have nothing much to talk about except RL, so it ends up sounding like a kind of sad little chatroom. After a few days in SL, there's a markedly diminished level of interest in which avatar's servoplasm lives in Outer Slobovia.

At this point, personally, I base absolutely nothing on what anyone tells me about RL. It's fine for idle chit-chat ("how's the weather there?", but for anything important, I really don't want to know. If there's a RL problem, I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but I'm just not gonna be able to do anything about it, so it's probably best I just don't know.

(I guess, if it makes you feel good about yourself, you can tell me you're 25 and gorgeous in RL. Even if it's true. )

Does it wierd me out?

kinnasorta yessenno.

In general I prefer SL to stay in SL and RL to stay in RL... but talk IS the main point IMO with the pix being a close second place.

It's partly a matter of comfort zones... there are ppl who tell you about their surgeries and their sexlife in the grocery store line. That kind of transparency makes me a bit uncomfortable in both realms. Once friendship/trust/comfort is established the walls begin to flex.

On the other hand while I try to be more-or-less tasteful and considerate, the one thing it seems I have NEVER been is what anyone expects me to be. It has brought me to feel that your expectations are not my responsibility.

Did I address the OP at all?




This is usually where I insert something obtuse intended to be humorous.



.. but you expected that.


So maybe I was wrong.


Pizza anyone?

God, that was an AWFUL post. I think I'll log in as an Alt and orbit myself for that.

I was sitting at a club one day, just listening to the music, when a guy sat down next to me and said hello. I said hi back. The next thing he said is "my girlfriend is waiting to hear back from the doctor to see if she has cancer." Well...what does one say to that? I said "sorry to hear that" but I moved on as soon as was possible. It was just way more information than I wanted from someone I had never talked to before.

hmm...

yeah, i dont mind hearing about people's non-important RL stuff. their pets. their job. the weather, yeah.

what REALLY weirds me out and even severely ticks me off is... when someone tells me someone ELSE'S real life information. well, something more than about their pets and their weather.

not, name/address/phone number. but... well, PERSONAL stuff. for example, someone told me that someone else was handicapped in RL. now i get all bent out of joint. WHY do i need to know this? SHOULD i know this? if i should, why didn't the original person tell me instead of this secondhand gossip?

and ya know what? i dont want to know. i dont mean to be callous, but i really dont want to know. what is the point of me knowing? should i treat this handicapped person differently because they're handicapped? i don't think so! do i have to pussyfoot around when talking to this person? ooh, make sure i dont say something like 'to take a walk.' if i DO say something that would be considered mean, they wouldn't care, since i didnt KNOW it was mean. but now that i KNOW, is it bad!? am i evil? cripes, i forget this crap and often say stuff that comes across as totally heartless. even if im SUPPOSED to know.

gah.

its just easier not knowing! honestly.

early in my SL experience, i met a person who spent a great deal of energy explaining to me how he killed his sick cat, after i had already added him to my friends list. he was too graphic and morbid, and went on and on even after i asked him to stop several times. i hesitated, but finally took the hardline, and now i find it easy to make such decisions.

delete and ignore. delete and ignore. delete and ignore.

It all depends.

If the person is someone whom I have just met, then it would feel odd -- it would feel as if disclosing that information would be premature in some way. I don't ever tell someone not to disclose, but at the same time unless I feel close to someone it would feel odd for certain levels of disclosure to be happening that I wouldn't feel comfortable reciprocating.

I'm generally a very private person in terms of keeping my RL and SL separate. Having said that, there are a handlful of people (literally less than five people) who know quite a bit about the person behind the keyboard, because I have known them for some time and have developed a close rapport and comfort level with them. But that's not something that comes easily or even eventually and it's very dependent, for me, on the person and context.

I too am an extremely private person, almost to Paranoia in RL some would say. I am amazed how easily some will tell their whole story to anyone they meet in SL, but in RL too. But we are in the age of storefront psychologists and reality TV, people will bare their souls to complete strangers, even millions of them on national TV.

Sorry for bumping this thread, but - heck, it's interesting and I missed it. There are some fascinating responses here.

At first I took the attitude that SL and RL shall not meet, but lately I'm wondering what is there really to talk about in SL that is only about SL. Eventually you may want to talk about other things that really matter to you.

So if people want to leap into a discussion of their problems, I'm OK with that. They must have a need to tell someone. Of course I don't want it to drag on and drag me down. I come to SL to escape largely. But it won't hurt me to listen for a while. The logo may be "Talk to the Hand," but I don't have to be that way.

That doesn't make me feel obligated to continue or reciprocate and tell them about the real me, however. It feels rather like I've done my civic duty for them and maybe it makes me feel good in a way. Not that I've had a bunch of people dumping their woes on me, just one or two. And they were reasonable with it.

As for disclosing info about someone's handicap. Yeah, I think that's tacky. I wouldn't know, but I can imagine the handicapped might relish being treated the same as everyone else. That may be a violation of TOS.