what would u do?

ok old story and it's way too early for a friday thread but here goes. Got this girl friend in sl who recently got together in sl with the man of her dreams. They were supposed to be meeting rl next week. They are both from different countries, they talk on skype and e:mail regularly and call each other both landline and mobile. I have also hotmailed him regularly.....read on.......... She doesn't know where in his country he is exactly. She only knows his rl first name. Now he's dropped off the radar and she had a message recently from his 'brother' saying that he is in hospital with 50/50 chance of surviving. Apparently he's been having bad headaches and she thinks he's had a brain haemorrage or something equally hideous....His home phone rings and rings, his mobile battery appears run down and he is not responding to any messages or appears able to, neither to me.

Naturally she's going out of her mind. She knows he has rl friends in sl but doesn't know who they are. No-one else from their mutual friends knows anything. Everywhere she turns, she's drawing a blank. It's been two weeks now.

I don't know what else to tell her. Either he really is ill or he just got cold feet and split. I also can't think of any other way she can find him or even if she should do. I really really wish him well, but it makes me think somehow in circumstances such as this, we should make provision to somehow let the person who matters know, just what the hell is going on.

Thoughts appreciated.

If it's all true and she's had a message from his 'brother' about his condition and all why can't the 'brother' give her the info she needs, what hospital he's in, what's his full name, etc?

Hate to be the bucket of cold water here, but odds are he's dumped her. If he let her know so little about himself in the first place, chances are he was never even remotely serious. If someone matters to you, you don't pull stunts like this.

Yes, if his so called brother can't tell her anything then I would advise her to just forget it and move on. Sounds fishy to me.

Cold feet, definitely.

I am familiar with a similar situation. The guy died and his fiance (who lived in another country) was left with little knowledge but was told by one of the family members she could not attend the funeral.

About a month later a new av showed up in the same social cirlces and it was discovered to be the "dead" guy.

I would spell it "you" instead of "u". But then I am just like that.

That was my first thought too

If he cared and they planned to meet, why the hell did she not know his last name, and where he lived, and address, and family members info, etc

before I met hubby we knew all that about each other and more

She should get a new guy with a fully operational brain.

But really, SL can be cruel in that people will sometimes misrepresent themselves (hey, they just want to be loved). Later on you realize they're nothing like the person in their 1st life photo etc. So in this situation you can either say "hey, you're fulgy. bye" or you can be abducted by aliens.

It's not nice to tell lies. But showing a photo of yourself when you weighed 20 tons less and you was 20 years younger isn't exactly being honest.

SL can be cruel.

this is a very old song..not only in SL but the net..
she should move on..

Not for nothing, but within a couple of weeks of getting to know my now RL boyfriend who I met in SL, we had exchanged RL information and knew each others real names, and where we lived because we were talking about meeting in person. Had something happened to either of us, we damn well could have gotten in touch with each other. Why? Because we really mattered to each other and when people are seriously getting to know each other on a certain level, they naturally give each other enough information to at least be able to have the other get in touch if there is an emergency.

Anyone who only has a cellphone or skype number is obviously keeping something from another. I can see if the relationship is only a week or two old, you do need to protect yourself for a decent amount of time but if these two were beyond that time frame and already discussing meeting in person, geez at the very least you'd think they knew each others last names and what country the other is from.

Sounds fishy and I also think, like others, that he's bailed for good. It's a sad story and happens all to frequently. Thankfully she has you for a friend, and I hope you'll be able to help her get through this.

my mom had a brain hemmorrage and you don't usually 'have headaches'. They tend to go from nothing to a major something pretty quickly.

I wouldn't believe it myself. It's too conincidental 'oh I was supposed to get on the plane tomorrow but wait...'

It's too bad ppls can't admit here is here aka "what happens in SL, stays in SL." and let ppls hang on some irl fantasy or need that fantasy themselves.

IF it's true, the coward will probably surface, one way or another given time.

I know it does sound very likely the guy has gotten cold feet and this story has probably been heard hundreds of times before, but I think that sometimes things do happen in Rl that have to take priority over Sl. I have a friend whom I met on sl that was supposed to coming over to stay with me this weekend but I have had to ask her to postpone her trip as I am pregnant and my waters have broken at 17 weeks and I now need to be on complete bedrest. I know there are huge differences in these stories but sometimes its just not possible to keep to plans outside of sl, and not everyone who does that is "doing the dirty".
Just my thoughts.

No, you are right, not everyone is. Just a lot of people seem to think the easy way out is to fabricate some huge story. I have seen it over and over again, in many online environments. You can call me jaded but you wouldn't be the first to call me that hehe

yep it was the same way for hubby and I
we met in SL first, and before meeting in RL, we knew all that about each other, and more

It is something you do when you truly care about the other person, especially if you are planning a RL meetup

If hubby had refused to tell me those personal things about him (name, address, etc) I would not have gone to meet him, I would have wondered why he was hiding that part from me.

When the long lost sibling shows up, it's usually the sick/dead person him/her self in an alt that they hid from you or a new alt. Very rarely is this kind of dramatic situation what it seems. Yes, crazy things happen - look at Natasha Richardson. However, the vast majority of the time, it's pure drama by a cowardly, dishonest jerk.

A girl had her SL BF go to fight in Iraq. I pointed out to her that even though he blocked his online status from her she could still see the last time he logged on in the groups they were both in together. Miraculously the war hero had been on SL that morning - from inside a sand dune I guess. She got the hint.

.

I have a story to share:


A friend of mine had met a girl online. They talked a lot, knew a lot of personal information on each other and were going to meet in person. Well ... suddenly the girl fell from the face of the earth. Her "sister" told my friend that she had a brain tumor and had died. Obviously, my friend was heart-broken .... only to find out about a year later that it was all a lie. The girl was fine, and never really did explain herself. She ended up married to some schlup a few months after her miraculous resurrection.

Soooo ....... time goes by and my friend (who doesn't seem to bright by this point) meets a new girl online. Again, the cycle continues, they plan to meet yadda yadda yadda. Well ..... what do you know? When the time came to meet, the girl was nowhere to be found. Shortly after, the girl told my friend that she was attacked by a tiger the night before her plane was to leave. We couldn't believe the audacity, and my friend decided to give her hell for such a ludacris story.

Long story short ..... the girl actually WAS attacked by a tiger .... sent along pictures and what-not. They ended up meeting and were together for a couple years .... missing fingers and all.

I don't know if there was a moral or point to this story ... but hey ... ya never know, I guess.

If I got dumped by someone pretending they were dead I would write a song about it. Then I'd go to Nashville and record a demo.

Lemme produce ya. I'll make ya star, Kid. Take the Continental Trailways if ya can't afford th' fare by air. I'll meet ya in a shinin limousine with yore contract in my pocket ...

Oh hang on ... head feels strange ... dizz ...

of course I would agree with all the comments received thanks. To my mind she's been told too little too late, but like she said, 'we didn't think to talk about those kind of things, we were too caught up in the moment'........yeah right /me shakes her vigorously shouts wake up and smell the coffee hunni......
of course, there is the possbility that he really is in hospital, unable to do anything, maybe critically ill, but methinks if he has rl friends in sl, his rl friends must know his rl situation..........but I wonder why none of these friends contacts his sl partner?
Consequently I am watching intently for news..drama for a tuesday huh.................nice

You never know about these things. The story could be true or made up.

What I wonder sometimes is when a story like the friend dying, or ill, or whatever turns out to be a lie, and it's something that is repeated again and again, what kind of person would do that to someone who obviously cares for them? How can someone be that mean? I realize SL is based on fantasy, but this kind of thing goes on in RL all the time.

I'd let your friend know that the odds are that her friend is probably not the person she thought, but there are a lot of people out there who are worth knowing.

I'd say, based on those statements alone, she should walk away. even if he does show up.