Missing people, and who were they, anyway...?

I think the discussion in the "missing people" thread illuminates some points that lie at the very root of the virtual social experience. The first is always the most obvious - that without "real" cues to guide us, we can be easily fooled into becoming emotionally invested in what may turn out to be someone's completely constructed persona. I knew "Jane Kit". I met her very early on in my SL life. I heard the boat person story.

This kind of thing is common enough in RL - where at least if a person is a nutter, you often have clues - like the body odor, whatever. Online - the cues are different, and not readily apparent to the inexperienced, or those with the "need to be needed".

I think the survey on trustworthiness that was recently floated in one of the threads helps point some of this up. "Do you think that people are essentially good?" - or similar. An interesting question. No - they're not. They're essentially people, and they're certainly all not made the same. Some genuinely wise person - I think maybe Des or Qie - commented a while back that without the "social brakes" of real social interaction, a lot of people go a little nuts with the "created persona" stuff. Roleplaying is fine, but a lot of people don't tell that they're doing so... it's really pretty noxious, if they've been playing the "straight people" for fools. I suspect this of a lot of the "disappeared".

I remember a conversation I had very early on, with a very charming, well-spoken, charismatic someone who obviously knew her way about the virtual landscape. She told me that the avatar I knew her as was an "alt" - infamous concept as we know. She'd made the alt to escape a relationship gone bad. She'd also apparently left behind "all my friends". I remember thinking at the time - she did... what?

Observing her behavior over the past year and a bit, I believe it. She's an utter and complete user. A manipulator, conniver, heartbreaker. Probably a sociopath, certainly a virtual sex addict.

My own experiences with a person to whom I certainly "felt" very close for some time have only reinforced my suspicions about what people do in environments like sl. I discovered (later), that my friend was running two avatars simultaneously, probably on two machines. That while she and I were spending time in what seemed very close friendship, she was usually logged onto YIM, IMing with others in SL, possibly running her other avatar... "oh, I was on the phone...".

To people like Botgirl Questi who blithely tell us to "lighten up" about our online attachments, I can only say - wait til you get burnt, sweetie. You're just a liberal who hasn't gotten mugged yet.

The clues are often there even in SL too. Like the person that was written about - I forget if it was here or in the SLU forums, a woman who would sit in a busy place but AR and mute anyone who stepped near her, and hide her avatar in a solid plywood prim so she couldn't be seen. A sensible person would simply have moved to a place where there were no other people - this woman was clearly, well, a nutter.

Even simple griefing - I suspect the people who do it are the ones who would, if there was no such thing as the internet, be outside torturing small animals and causing vandalism to other peoples' property.

People who have an inbuilt need for drama, manipulation, control of others, these things can all be seen in SL too. Your "friend" with the alt being a prime example of that.

There are quite a few people in SL (and online generally) who are mentally ill or who have some kind of personality disorder. The online world allows them to express their disorder in a "safe" way (for them ... not for the people they are using like that). For someone who has histrionic personality disorder (the pathological need for attention) or narcissistic personality disorder, an environment like SL is paradise, I think.

I think it's taking things a little bit too far to say someone with an alt is definitely up to no good. I recently spent some time in an alt while my partner was ill. He knows about it. I just needed some time not being Cherry, with the various expectations of Cherry that people I know and love dearly have. Plus, being unable to stay connected (as happens to so many UK people with the white lump of BT evil) was then a plus point in some ways, I could wander around SL completely detached and - curiously - not feeling lonely. I should point out that my SL relationship has crossed the boundary to RL, and isn't one of those transient throwaways SL specialises in so often.

Saw a lot of things instead of just moping. I too rejected friendships, with one exception who has come back across the great divide with me. Didn't do anything wrong and made it very very clear when romance came knocking that there was no way I could even entertain it.

In a way, doing that burned out a lot of frustrations that I'd been carrying because I couldn't go anywhere at will - it's very different when you are just tatting about on your own, and when you go somewhere to be with your special one and/or your friends and can't spend time with them - also, you're not being a source of frustration to them by constantly timing out and crashing.

So alts are not always there for drama and manipulation I have no more need for my (relative) noob alt and as to the other two I have - ah this is tragic - they are partnered to my partners matching alts (one for RL business purposes and one just to be REALLY silly).

Do all nutters smell funny? (Sorry I had to bring that one up - I don't think you can assume ALL nutters smell funny.)

QFT!

There's many people who are liars to themselves as well as other people though. That isn't necessarily a mental illness, especially if they are working through things like gender identification issues, sexuality etc.

However, yes. There are also people who use others online as displacement for their woes online and off. Me being the big soft idiot that I am, it takes me a while to listen to the people around me saying "Ditch X" - I've done the rounds now, as invariably X was saying to ditch Y, and Y was telling me how unstable/crappy X was.

I completely agree with this. SL can be a haven for people that want/need to have some sort of interaction with people, or even adulation, but have little control over what they do or who they are, and draw great comfort from the apparent lack of consequences from their actions. I once nearly fell off my chair when someone once described SL to me by saying, with complete conviction... "It's a good Life here."

The thing I have not figured out is whether SL is an overall benefit for these people, or whether it feeds the narcissism and/or dependency on a consequence-free environment, an environment that can never realistically translate into RL.

/me waves at Cherry.

Yes, people have alts for different reasons, not just to be 'up to no good'. I spent a year here mainly building and dealing with customers which can get very lonely and you cannot do anything without your IMs going. I made an alt for having fun away from it all, she has now taken over and feel more myself in her than this AV. I have a partner and wouldn't hide any accounts from him.

I do agree though that SL like anywhere on the net has a high percentage of people with mental disorders etc as it is somewhere easy to come if you struggle in the RL. It's a lot easier to hide your problems behind a screen.

/me wonders what is so bad about that.

OMG Cherry, did I see you where I thought I saw you? /me hides her head *blushing*

I miss Gaybot Foxely.

He was a really good friend of mine, One of the most hilarious people I've ever met.

The saddest part is I convinced him to join WOW and haven't seen him since... So honestly I guess it's really my fault.

The thing about alts is that it matters very much, in the context of a relationship, whether the alts are disclosed or not. If you are in a more involved relationship, undisclosed alts are really a way of facilitating shenanigans (or very much can be) unbeknownst to your relationship partner. On the other hand, alts that are disclosed to the partner, which are simply a way of being apart from another persona (perhaps a more public one) in SL, but *not* hiding from your partner/girlfriend/etc., are fine and not really problematic from a relationship point of view. The problem really arises when the alts are secret to the other person in the relationship as well -- which was the case in the situation described by the OP -- because this creates increased issues of trust which are not helpful in an online context where trust is always something of an issue to begin with.

If someone is truly a virtual sex "addict", of course that's problematic for a relationship as well because for a sex addict, sexuality is problematized from the perspective of being an expression of love in the context of a relationship ... sex addicts, for example, are generally not capable of maintaining any kind of committed monogamy. So in the context of a relationship where the parties may expect committed monogamy of some kind, sex addiction can be quite problematic.

... issues of trust which are not helpful in an online context where trust is always something of an issue to begin with.

... in the context of a relationship where the parties may expect committed monogamy of some kind, sex addiction can be quite problematic.[/QUOTE]

Yeah. It's not even so much expecting monogamy, as realizing that one is just another toy in a long line of them, tossed away at whim. Pretty noxious.

QFT.

Social dynamics in SL are still in their infancy, what with the format being only 5 years old. A new society can hardly gel in such a short time period. I think that we're at the cusp of a new aspect of society as we know it. It's gone from the relatively primitive BBSs of yore (wow! I'm posting at 1200 baud!!!) to nearly physical interactions and deep emotional connections with our avatars. I think that certainly we "older" people (e.g. anyone older than 15) are going to tend to take a lot of what's done and said in SL in a totally different light than those who come after us and who are currently developing a new generation of power users of electronic media.

It will be really interesting to see, in 20 or 30 years, how humans really interact in virtual environments. Will we be able to "see" the obsessives, the liars, the manipulators, more easily than we do now? Or will deep, true, human "detection" remain primarily dependent on actual physical presence?

I am nut, I tell you up front stay away if you got issue with it.
Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes I met people who are emotionally draining too.
I just stay away.
You have that option too.
If person wants to know the real me the clues are there.
Same way with everyone else unless they are good at hiding it.
Humans are imperfect beings, its only are pixels that are perfect here.
We will annoy, disappoint, drain and emote in ways you don't like.
And you can choose who you want to deal with and how superficial you want to keep it at.
There is good in everyone, there is also bad in everyone.
Some are needier then others.
I wonder where gaybot went, never knew him but I drew a image of my fantasy version of him....
I am often way too vulernable, way too needy then others get and it easier often to be recluse because of it.
Because when I let new people in even virtually it causes me lot of pain.

I think there are probably more than a few frustrated novelists in Second Life, for whom avatar/alt creation is another form of characterisation.

Maybe but there are people who are here with real tragedies and hell to in there personal offline life who don't or can't leave it outside of the login screen too.

That wasn't a reply to you, FD; it was just a general response to the OP. I understand perfectly that there are those as you described, both in Second Life and in RL

I think you will find, much to the relief of some, that it is unlikely that virtual technology will ever develop to the point where you can always see someone else's motivation.

Some people can obsess, lie and manipulate just as effectively in RL as they can in virtuality. Whether it is to get attention, get a job, have an all expenses paid trip to Vegas, or to con people (including friends and family) out of hard cash, people will always use the skills they have to fulfil their needs, whatever damage it causes to others, even if doing this means lying to themselves and damaging themselves.

In reality, I don't think we are on the cusp of anything truly "societal" with virtual worlds, except that it is a small part of the increasing use of social networking, the internet, mass push media, electronic entertainment, etc., etc. Fundamentally though, once you strip all of that aside, people are people, with animal needs that go far beyond what the microchip can deliver, or even be truly surrogate for.

That is okay Skell.
I am just being a emo-pire and frustrated artist who is having hard time create anything
but misery right now.
People use SL for different things, sometimes they lose perspective too.
I know I have, I figure there must be others out there in same boat.
I am not role player I just lack the ability to be butt pirating robot...it would be whole lot easier if I was just pixel generated machine not human being.
There friends I have who have real tragedies in their lives,etc and some aren't friends of mine any more because it was too emotionally draining.
And then there are times I am way too draining to be a friend and I don't manage this well, so I start removing people as friends and go in hiding just like in real life except I don't have friend list and mute button in real life.
There is no real difference between real life and second life when it comes to me except my pixels are what I want others to see.
There is true safety on being in virtual place, you can look any way you want not to deal with the rejection if you don't have the right look or right sex organs.
I think personally its hard regardless of what reality you exist in to connect with others but that just my experience.
Yet over-powering desires, emotions, rejection and vulernablity exist still here because we are humans not machines.

Yes, but certain aspects of the virtual really facilitate this behavior. Could you imagine what the physical world would be like if we could, at will, create alternative versions of ourselves in an anonymous, secret way?

There is ways to create secret changeable appearances and anonymous lives in real life but it just a lot harder to do.
It is not always to hurt others.

Probably something like the Somme - worse, it would be total dystopia. Thankfully in RL we have CCTV, internet monitoring, telephone call monitoring, security gates, armed police, ID cards, DNA databases, credit cards recording your shopping habits, travel passes that record everywhere you go, and mobile phones triangulating you every few seconds anyway. No chance of anonymity there. And, of course, everything you do in SL is pretty much recorded as well - and it is part of RL just as much as using the telephone, watching a DVD, etc.

The apparent utopia of virtual worlds only comes at a heavy cost if you lose the connection to RL, if you are too immersed, inured or reliant/dependent on it. I tend to try to moderate this by being incredibly open about my RL in SL, effectively making SL just one other form of communication. It is risky, but I prefer to take that risk than the risk (I admit) of falling for the sheer attractiveness of being anything I seem to want, and creating a gross incongruency between how I perceive myself and who I really am.

This I can confirm. I fell for one... Carried it over to RL via email, but something must have happened without my knowledge.

Not everyone is there to hurt, and I am convinced that I can also have fun in SL with friends I make, not only the ones that I would love to have a RL relationship with.

Where can I meet people to explore the places with, people who don't have interest in just having virtual sex with me or making me fall for them and then dumping me? Normal people, normal friends? Where are you guys/gals?

They are there. If a nut like me can find people who care and long term relationships in world
anyone can. Most of my closest friends are almost as old as me we have be together close to day one with each other or few months from our join dates.
I have had same group of close, relatively normal friends for over year now, one it evolved into something sexual, we talk on phone but we were friends and I am sincere about love and concerned about her feelings and not just her pixel self, she knows I like guys more that way and I care very much for her. We are still friends and yes we have occasional sex.
The others its not about sex. We talk, we build, we laugh and do normal things together.
Yet those new or brief pose ball friends or pose ball romps, no I don't expect it to move beyond that but I expected it was sort of obvious from the start.

Generally just in all kinds of places you might go on your own to enjoy SL. When I joined SL the LAST thing I wanted/was looking for, was a relationship. I began working in a jazz club for the $L I needed to pay rent, but also to have a bit of a daily escape from the drama in the group I migrated over to SL with.

I would NEVER have imagined that a year later I would be celebrating a year's partnership with an amazing man who also worked in the same club.