Lies, Deception and Evilness

SL is SL, RL is RL.

If you intend to take it from SL to RL, there is a process, a protocol, that you really should adhere to before you commit any serious feelings or resources on the "other person".

First and foremost is RL contact, first by voice, then by presence. After that, spending more time interacting outside of SL to find out if there is real RL chemistry present, or if it was just you falling in love with the SL fantasy persona.

It's not really that much different than doing the "meat market" / "club scene". When you're at the club, you are interacting with the "fantasy" representation. It's not until you interact outside of that fantasy back in RL for a while that you can really "get to know" the other person.

Anyway, the rule is, no serious expenditure of feelings, resources, or commitment, until significant RL contact has been established. Until then, just be "good friends". It leads to less disappointment, and allows people to keep the friendships in case the other person either isn't what they were expecting, or decides he/she doesn't want to pursue RL interaction after all.

I am sooooo telling!

i am not surprised. i'll predict that this scenerio is true for MOST SL relationships (consider percentages of relationships, not just your own). i'm sorry for your friend, and i hope she is okay. best.

Heheheh you can, I have teased her about it before. Told her im bringing the wax in march

I agree with this post 100%

SL does not really foster "reality" nor expect it in the same way that an internet dating service would and so you are already starting with a higher level of risk. It is no different in essence than meeting someone from chat rooms and taking it to RL.
It should therefore not be a surprise to anyone that people are not what they claim to be. There are generally (as far as generalisations get you) three main types people however that often get mixed together and really should be kept as apart as possible in people's thinking.

1) The person who wishes to be their fantasy self in SL and has no desire to hurt anyone, or take on a relationship that could go RL. This type of person is perfectly entitled to be whatever they want in SL without any kind of illwill being directed their way. They will generally turn away love interests and gather only close friends at most.

2) The person who enters an SL relationship that goes to RL and knowing their partners preferences for whatever reason decides to willfully ignore them and sets out to deceive them about their RL self even though it is expected that RL truth on both sides will be forthcoming. I would put this type of person in the creepy stalker category personally.
This is exactly the reason why, as Talarus says, people should be very cautious about taking SL to RL. I would say verify everything you can and as you decide that this is what you want, meet as soon and as safely as you can. At least then you are on the same footing as if you had met that person in a chance encounter in RL.

3) The person who has no intentions of getting into a SL->RL relationship but cannot help themselves and falls in love, infatuation, whatever with a person who they know is not likely to accept their RL status and yet finds it hard to come clean.
This is a harder one to deal with and a lot of good, otherwise genuine people fall into this trap I think. How they handle it is a real test of their character. Some will come clean anyway, some will break it off and fade away but some will start to deceive the other.
This is possibly the messiest and most difficult of the types to handle on both sides I think. Worse than type 2) because type 2)'s are setting out to deceive and so once found out does not really deserve much sympathy or understanding. However type 3) people have often just lost their way somehow and the secrets are probably causing huge amounts of guilt. That complicates things immensely imo.

None of these things are much different from RL situations in essence, there are those who will be honest and forthright, those that intentionally will decieve you over something that will hurt really badly and those who don't set out to deceive you but will fall into the trap of doing so.

One final thing that also occurs is that I hear from many people that they think SL->RL love is viable because they know someone who made it work. My opinion? Be skeptical, those people who say they have made it work are not necessarily anymore truthful than anyone else imo. I tend not to believe much of what I am told on the internet regardless of how earnestly it is told.

Furthermore, SL only offers 1 or 2 forms of interaction, it doesn’t take into account, body language, vision, sound (in some cases), touch, smell……..it’s essentially missing 4 or 5 forms of communication necessary to determine chemistry. Hence the reason I don’t think falling in love on line is possible or real, there is to much missing

I don't know if it's cultural or not, but women in western society tend to have a much broader dynamic range in their voice, at least in tone and sometimes in volume. Some guys do have a broad range as well, and even without a voice changer tend to get pegged by voice as female.

Lies, Deception and Evilness

These are Features only.
They are not mandatory downloads.

This might be true if not for the fact that it does happen and on a regular basis. Plus the other fact that people were falling in love with nothing more then the written word since the written word was invented. One of your fellow New Zealanders, Shekina Zeno, has been happily married for 2 years now after meeting someone in SL.

Face it, love is blind to all but the idea of love even if you are around the person everyday. It's why divorce was a necessary invention. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Actually India has done several studies that have proven that there is a higher success rate with arraigned marriages. The theory is that there are no preconceived expectations and hence no disappointment.

Finding love is hard, risky mostly full of disappointments for most people and that is just in RL. Why would you want to add extra difficulties and risks just for the heck of it by seeking it in SL?
I would say stick to RL unless you feel there is no choice for you, even then a real online dating service would be my choice over SL every time.

What makes you think that people are seeking it?

I met my wife online, and that was back before the Internet was called the Internet. It was a complete accident, neither of us were looking for anything of the kind.

Do you dispute that there are many seeking it in SL? I would only say you have to look around you in SL and talk to people. You will find that many people are here to find someone special.

Again not trying to be insulting or anything but you are just another person on the internet saying that they found true love here. I take all such declarations with a pinch of salt. I am not saying you are lying but I don't really know you from Adam is all.

Kind of a jaded view, Gabriele, "it has not happened to me so it can not possibly happen".

No I do not think it is my stance at all. Whether or not it has happened to me has no bearing on my opinion.

Saying my viewpoint is jaded is also just your own opinion, perhaps a more dewey eyed one but just an opinion no more and no less.

I like to think of my viewpoint as more realistic, I have statistics on my side

Can I ask you a question and I am not being offensive, I am curious.

Why do you choose to have an SL relationship instead of a RL relationship, or do you have both?

What would happen if you met someone in RL, someone you wanted to actually touch, smell etc? Or, do you not want a RL relationship and a virtual one fulfils all your needs?

OK I'll bite. What statistics? I am one person with few friends in SL and yet I know two couples that have married and been sent the photos. Unless your ludicrous "I take all such declarations with a pinch of salt." statement includes pictures(which it probably does), then these are pretty good statistics.

So where are these statistics at?

No one is saying to use SL as a dating service. Some are just saying that marriages do happen because of SL. You are in effect saying, even if not trying to be insulting, that all of these people are liars. What possible reason would Argent have to say that he met his RL spouse through the internet? What possible reason would my 2 sets of friends have to not only say they got married but then send pictures to complete the illusion?

You are not normally a troll but in this case when you pop in and say that people are deceiving others when they say they met online or in SL or that people who state that they have friends in SL who have been married have themselves been deceived, what possible reason do you have for making such statements besides just to have an argument?

The stats on these boards probably, the ones who come crying because their SL partner turned out to be married, the wrong sex, a liar, a minger etc etc

Actually if you read again you will see that he stated that they are moving in together in RL in a few days.

I assumed he was moving in with her on SL, he doesn't actually say RL. If it is RL then yay, it can happen and I have never said it can't. I have always said no expectations before you meet in person.

Except then the stats would be wrong. There is no reason for anyone to come to the forum and start a thread stating "WOOHOO we are getting married". So let's look at another stat, look at how many people that have come into this thread and stated that either they themselves have met someone or know people who have? I am sure we all know people that have gotten burned here, but many of us also know others where it has worked out.

I still can not fathom why anyone would decide to argue that the ones that have stated that they have met someone here are either delusional or deceptive?

Do you agree that people have met and married because of SL or do you believe this to be a scam?

Err, that was not my arguement dude, you need to take that up with the person that posted that.

I am making the claim and assertion that people are far less likely to meet their true love and it go to RL where they live happily ever after than it all turn badly for them. I don't have any statistics available I just said they are on my side (I believe). Those would be any statistics you can come up with I will warrant.

*sighs* I am not trolling, I believe my opinions to be just as valid as yours. Just because you do not agree does not make me a troll.
I am not making my opinions to cause an argument, I am injecting what I think is a healthy dose of cynicism in this discussion is all.
It is not like there is nothing to back me up either, there are many threads in just these forums that say the same. There are many people in world, friends I have had, people I meet etc that say the same. Real love from SL is highly unlikely.

BTW You don't have to respond to what I write.
It isn't like I directed my comments to you or anything.
I write what I write because I feel there is value to my opinions for others. People should know that just because people "testify" about something on a forum does not necessarily make it truth. Sorry if that upsets you but I didn't for that purpose.

Well, there's no more reason to be skeptical of someone saying they made it work than someone saying that it can't ever work. In fact, I KNOW the former is true; the latter is not.

It *CAN* work; there's enough evidence that it happens out there that is easily verifiable.

I mean, what's the point in lying about it? Hoping that someone would be taken in by the possibility and getting burned? Well, the situation and the result have nothing to do with being told, one way or the other, whether it is possible. Like we both agree, it has to do with how well it is approached by the people involved in the first place.

As with anything on the Internet (as well as anything in RL, honestly), you have to consider the source. If it can be verified, or you have high confidence in the person's intrinsic integrity, then it is acceptable.

You would be surprised what people will do to get attention. There are indeed people who will do this.