FRIENDSHIP AND "BEING REAL" IN SL

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm posting that I plan to steal most of what Doradiia said too.

I think my RL is on my side and is trying their best to help me be what I want to be. I think I'm probably thought of as a bit like a character in a novel or soap, I need input but it is tailored to my needs.

I has two avies so I'm schizo or somethin. I have me and I'm an SL kid. And I'm just finding my way, but I keep that RL stuff out of it. I don't think that makes my friends any less my friends. Jamie's still new, but I have a few friends and I care about them a lot.

Sometimes I use IM if I'm asking something that I want to keep private. If it's something OOC, like asking about the game, that goes in IM. If it's something private but in character, I usually /me whispers to Marianne or something like that. Cause that's what Jamie's doing.

It's sometimes hard to let myself just go with it, and not retreat into RL stuff, but I'm getting better and better at it.

Then I have the other me, who's not quite me. She's a few years younger and a few pounds lighter, but she identifies with real life information and I hang around with a lot of my real life friends. It's pretty much me.

Honestly I like being Jamie a lot more and there's a load of me in Jamie. She's very very real. Sometimes I think more real than the other me or the rl me.

I'm very much in sympathy with this. A good answer to "Where are you from?" is the name of the sim where you live ...

Like Chellonia, my SL self is a lot nicer than my RL self. I talk to anyone, give out helpful hints, etc. It's so uch easier to be nice in SL! I like talking about where I'm from because I love to travel and have added a few places to my "must go" list. (God bless the Dutch!) I can't really separate RL me and SL. They are the same. I created an alt in a sad attempt to play at being a different person and it worked all of a week. She wasn't supposed to make friends, join clubs or be anything other than an escape from Akaria. Now she's got friends that I want Akaria to know! How messed up is that?

That's what's nice about SL, your play style can be whatever. If you want to share friends among alts, go ahead. heh heh

Some people have difficulty being anything but their RL selves in games, and others have just as much trouble being their RL selves in virtual settings for various reasons.

I fall under the latter catagory, obviously. heh heh I won't get into my reasons more than I have though, but it's wonderful to escape myself for a while and live this other life. And I personally would never ever screw over my SL friends any more than RL friends... if I had any. heh

For me, I'm just as nice IRL, but far less capable... I can post on a forum, and I can chat in SL, but I cannot address a room full of strangers. (At least, not without a script... performing is not the same. Giving a well rehersed performance doesn't dull my anxiety, but it gives me the necessary planned behavior to fall back on... rather than freezing up or running away.)

That's not to say I don't get intimidated in SL, but I am at least functional, especially once I get to know people. ;p

Don't beat yourself up over what she was 'supposed' to do Akaria. Life just isn't that predictable .. even more so SecondLife!
I made the same assumption, made the same mistake .. and learned from it. I learned the assumption was wrong LOL.
I just have to be very careful my alt doesn't figure big with any of my RL friends who are Bilbo's SL friends too.

What really screws you up is when your 2nd alt emotionally destroys your main alt, by screwing with one of your other alts

SL is an escape, a release for my insanity, and it provides the best RP of any MMO as far as I'm conserned, My alts all have different personalities and different social circles.

LOL Teqq, a release yes!

There is though a real (of the virtual kind!) problem when two of your characters meets the same other person. Some out there just can't accept the fantasy of the character.
All too easy to be tempted down the road of deceit and lies.
Then the fun can become nightmare.

Maybe it's just me, but the more people come to SL, the more that happens. I joined almost in mid November 2006, yet I feel like I've been here forever

Anyway, I'm here to live a second life and I'm not interested in meeting people outside of SL, nor to find a RL partner or whatever. So, it quite pisses me off when one is eager to know all those details about my RL, expecially when he (never had that problem with SL women) is just a complete stranger who just happened to be in the same place I was.

If one asks right away where I am from, or what's my age, I do usually answer but at that point I'm already pissed off and believe me, chances are dim that I'll meet that person again, if not by chance.

Just recently I had a guy who assumed I was a woman in RL (so he didn't ask) and jumped to the age/location line. Then he asked what I was doing for a living in RL. So I answered "What next? Will you ask for my Social Security Number?" and I teleported away.

But there is another category of people, which I don't know how to label. A guy asked me (in English) if I was French. I said "No" (which is the truth) and he just walked away. Pfffttttt...

I have to admit that I'm one of those people that ask "where are you from" pretty early into the conversation. It's not a sleazebag thing, but a genuine interest and delight in this medium that has enabled me to meet so many fascinating people of diff races and cultures. And also, being from Singapore I'm always hopeful that someday someone will go "Singapore"!

I know we're all here for different reasons but for me, I'm interested in the person behind the avatar. I keep it real in both lives and SL is an extension of the real me, not a substitute.

So yes - I've lived my second life assuming everyone else is being real, and been sucked in, taken advantage of, ripped off. Been there, done that...writing the book! But at the end of the day, there are a**h*les in RL too.....does it stop you from being wonderful, generous, kind-hearted, magnamimous, gorgeous, beautiful, sexy, simply FAB-U-lous....whoa....getting a bit carried away here.

What are we talking about again?

To me, living a second life and roleplaying are 2 different things. I've been roleplaying in the "real world", old styled pen and paper roleplaying, with rolling dices...

Here I am living a second life but my avatar it's not a "substitute". It's my attitude, my personality, my feelings, on a completely different environment and situation.

I believe that's enough to say it's the "real me", if you like to, but I think that it shouldn't matter if I'm from France or Japan, if I work as a train driver or an accountant, if I'm married or not, if I have a dog, a cat or whatever.

Anyway my point is that if you get to be a good friend of mine, you may know all of that. But just meeting me somewhere and asking all that stuff right away does not score well on my personal book.

Sometimes I meet a newbie whose first question is where am I from. Now I can appreciate that this p***es some folk off and sometimes depending on the time or my tiredness, it does me too. On the other hand, I think back four little months to when I was a raw beginner wobbling round the place trying to get that f***ing box off my head and I remember how shy and awestruck I was to this whole concept.

Jeez! what a gorgeous looking girl! What do I say? umm .. Hi! ... er .. where are you from?

Now, the best they would get out of me in real life would be a sheepish smile before diving for cover. Wow! what a whole new ballgame! SL has taught me both in-world and out how to break that wall of shyness down and actually speak to a total stranger.

It's only a question. OK, answer/ignore/teleport there's no harm done.

My alt has patiently answered these newbie questions with 'I'm an alt' .. 'I live in SecondLife' .. 'I'm four months old' .. and I've still gone on to have interesting and amusing conversations with people who sometimes aren't even very good english speakers. I've even put some on my friends list.

I'm gobsmacked every login

For me, it's not so much the simple act of complete strangers asking about my RL that bothers me. I know that it is usually a well-meaning person, just trying to make conversation. I regularly give my general geographic location, but if the questioning continues, I politely decline. What troubles me is the degree of indignation I often receive when I say I prefer to keep my RL private. Frankly, I resent the implication that this means I'm hiding something, or that I am rude, but this is the accusation I regularly receive for stating my boundries.

The last few times a stranger has asked where I'm from, I just give them the name of the sim I have my business in. So far nobody has questioned that, I think they just assume Myeolchi is some small city or town they've never heard of.

Either that, or they know it's an SL region and understand it means I'm not going to talk about RL.

-Atashi

Ohhhh, I do this all the time.

How successful I am at it isn't for me to say, I haven't a clue.

Others would answer it better.

But knowing how my "typist" is in RL, I'd say I'd pretty successful.

Surely the clue is in the name: - Second Life! Given a chance to have a second (albeit virtual) life, running in parallel with your first life, why one want to live that second existence as an exact copy of oneself?

Are you RPing a plagiarist? LOL



And I'm nicking that.

OK, but you should be aware that there are a lot of people who treat SL as a very immersive rpg, and any questions about the RL person are, quite frankly, the worst faux pas you can make, and instant social death. I would advise against such questions unless you are sure that the person you are talking to is of the same mind as you.

One accepted strategy is to use double parentheses to indicate out-of-character conversation.

Wrong would be -

Luxe Alabaster: Hi! I'm from Singapore! Where are you from?

Right would be -

Luxe Alabaster: ((Are you happy to discuss RL things?))

You've been unlucky then Audible. It must be fluke that most if not all folk I meet accept the cut-off of RL info well and continue to chat, albeit sometimes not for long

But your point highlights one of the strongest plus points of SL I think. You get to that point, you stipulate your view and then it's their decision. No embarassment, no stammering and no obligation, safely in the situation that they accept or one of you walks away.

Interesting strategy Daisy, I'd not heard of that.

Mebbe a limiting example but I can't quite see the advantage. If the roleplayer took exception to the RL question they more than likely would give an evasive answer 'a far, far, distant galaxy, traveller'. If on the other hand, they were ok with RL they might say 'as a matter of fact, I am but I like to think I'm from Betelgeuse 9'

Dunno, you're probably right Daisy, I'm just thinking aloud

I shall try the double parenthesis .. but then I rarely actually start conversations LOL

Wow, really??! How clueless have I been? I suppose my SL etiquette has been groomed by the people I met when I was a newbie and the friends I have now.....but this is all great to know!

*makes note not to ask any RL questions and just stick to things like "great shoes!"*

I mostly try to stay in L character, but I do like to know where people are from. Not because I am curious about that place as such, but because I want to know the timezone and how likely we are to be awake at the same time.

A good one Warda! ... damn! wish I'd thought of that! LOL
Yes, based on this you can build a circle of friends. Some places are very themed on RL areas. For instance I'm English and have been to English, Welsh and Irish pubs in SL. Whilst some other visitors come there from other timezones you get a very real feel of a hardcore of regulars there who do slowly leak out their RL lives LOL

I think SL changes us. We learn.

Even then, I would normally stick to game time for all discussion. One can ask "what sort of times are good for you?", and if they say "I'm on most from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.", then it's a good guess that they are on PST, but whether they are or not, the important thing is you can tell how much you are going to be on at those times - which is all you need to know.