I beg for help! My first romantic night was a disaster! (read) I need tips for 2nd

Ok will jump in here

First not to down your gf but she needs to pay attention to you and the date. She can let her friends know the latest tomorrow instead.

Now Africa used to have places to dance, explore oh oh oh even a hot air balloon ride that is real nice, there are also cuddle spots. So you wouldnt be tping all over the place.

Dinner well went to dinner once and it was nice and all but dont think we will do that again.

Communicating is very important also.

Heavenly Rose Garden is a place like this. Lovely sim.

{purrs} ah yes, but notice how she did not mention other windows open, IMs, etc....
{slinks off to find a place to hide}

You are so cute............ I just wanna pinch your little cheeks.

I have had my share of disasters as well. The most recent was a two week old scouted out fairy tale land that upon arrival with my Lady was now some seemingly bawdy neko paradise (which would have been fine if I had not been trying to show my Lady a fairy tale land). After the initial heart failure and then chuckle, the evening continued to go sideways.

It happens. I have found that whether dates are planned, unplanned and anything in between, they can equally work or not work. There is no formula, but I suggesting going with the flow.

RL interruptions also happen. If they happen constantly and it is annoying, then perhaps it's a sign that this one is not meant to be.

Dating in SL requires many concessions, much understanding and great flexibility.

With clover, it is more like, ... well, we have already agreed to a certain power exchange. The romance comes afterward when I let her sleep in the bed instead of on the floor or in the cage.

I was going to say I wanted a date, but even under the best circumstances that would sound "wrong" and I'm sure me saying my alt started as a child avatar would make it even worse.

/me laughs loudly.

Oh god have done some bad things in the wrong windows ....

When we are out dancing or at a party, I will have local chat pulled off and under the comm window. I then have clover in IM on the comm window. There may be some other things happening in the different tabs but I pop back to clover's IM right after. So then we go home, I send local chat back to the comm window and go to the IM tab for clover ... only it is no longer in the same spot. Instead of being the third tab it becomes the forth for example.

I am not often accused of being modest and I would probably say the same thing at any adult gathering but to do it by mistake to a bunch of strangers in group chat just makes my face burn red with embarrassment.

Lol, OP is pretty funny.

There have been plenty nights You've surprised me, asking me to be your "date", finding a place where we can just talk.

Elrick is right. Any activity, but esp. dating, in SL requires flexibililty and understanding.

{snicker} i had forgotten about all that. I was referring to you not paying attention to me. =>.<= {runs off before her tail gets pulled}

Romance?

Try the Reflections sims. Midnight Reflections is one, and in searching for that on the map you'll find the others.

Also: Tempura Japan - look for the pink water lilies, but maybe try it with a different lady

GAH!!! No pinching!!!


Well I suppose I did sort of bring it up myself, but - dude, SS Galaxy. Seriously. You should spend a couple of hours just by yourself exploring the ship - it's three sims long and there's tons to do. You should do it yourself first, so you'll know all the best spots and can sort of secretly "direct" a tour when you take your gf there to explore. Ask me sometime to tell you about all the stuff you can do there. I can even give you a tour. I'll tell you one thing - looking at your list, you can have your ENTIRE date, every single step, on that ship.

That's really sweet that you came here for suggestions. And you put some effort into the date. Most women would be quite taken with that.....and would turn the cell phone and IM's off.

The club thing is the same in RL....you get to club A and the music sucks....so you move to club B, and it's so loud you can't hear yourself think....on to club C, and the place is dead.....on to club D......and you can't even TP!

ok at dinner....you have the whole place to yourselves....if she didn't slip off her heels under the table and slide her bare foot up your pants leg.....while you watch her dip the lobster into the butter....bringing it slowly to her mouth....a wee bit of the butter dripping down the corner of her mouth....her tongue catching it, and slowly sliding across her lips....her toes working their way up your leg.....

.....probably going to be a dull evening......you could hit the road after dessert, and try again with girl B....this is SL, dude.

.....or you could try again on the dance floor.....if your heart isn't racing, and you're not squirming at your laptop, and spilling your wine all over yourself, after an hour of dancing..... no amount of gadgets are going to help with step 7......in fact, like Rhonda said, you could already be at step 7 on the dance floor.

As others have said go with the flow. Why not stay at home and just sit and talk ?
Another point if her RL is to busy for her to give you this time you both planed maybe she is not the one

Did we scare the OP away?

Yes, in a good way, you scared me.

I've just found so much feedback and so many interesting points that I am scared of how I am going to handle this... This is the third time I've read all the posts and I am still discovering new things... at this point my head is burning.

Thanks to all for the answers.

Now I just want to play the SL game for a change.
I've already played the RL game a few times.
And when I play the RL game I don't beg for help in the forums. I guarantee.

For your next date, try http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nimue%20Isle%20/61/188/49/. No lag, just lovely surroundings.

...is calling it a game. If this is a game for you, you are likely to be played. If you want a real connection from it - and from the effort and thought you put into it, it seems you do - then you have to treat it as a real thing. And the other people as real people who have feelings, interests and an agends of their own. It's going to be pretty superficial otherwise.

In RL or SL the way to make a connection with someone is to find out and be interested in them, not to impose your idea of a good time onto them. In RL I hope you would talk to the person and negotiate what seems to be a good way of spending time with them. You wouldn't simply take them along to an obscure German film, for example, without knowing that they are interested in German Films... that would be a quick way to end any potential relationship. In that same way, people in SL tend to be divided between those who ike clubs and dancing as a way of passing time, and those who like to do something active, or explore.

In SL far more than RL, because you can't see the other person's reactions or body language, you need to be communicating and listening - most importantly listening - to what they are saying. Do they like to talk/explore/do active things/shop?

My experience in SL is that rather than trying to make an SL date follow a RL pattern, it is far, far better to find something to do together which will allow you to get to know each other better. What that is will depend on who and what you like. Rather than tping across SL in a vain search for a nice restaurant and other places, find a sim which you can explore together. SL is so big nowadays that there are bound to be lots of places that are potentially interesting.

If you can't find a shared interest that works in SL, why not find an interesting sim that you can explore together and chat at the same time. I'd recommend places like the Golgothica, or the Kingdom of Sand, which are fantastic builds, especially since you are on European time and likely to be online at times when they are less busy. If your gf has an interest in building or scripting you could explore places like the Particle Laboratory in Teal. Whatever you like and she likes, try to find an interesting build that you can explore together, and that is new to both of you.

I'd recommend buying a hug that can be used anywhere, and if you feel so moved, give her a hug. I'd also highly HIGHLY recommend that you buy Craig Altman's Slowdance 3 to use back at home... it's a very cuddly, snuggly, romantic dance, and I'm not simply recommending it because he is my friend... my SL partner and I have always used that dance as a way of being close and talking together. (His shop is called Bits and Bobs... don't buy from anywhere else!)

In the end, in SL as in RL, a relationship is about the two people involved and the magic between them, and you can't fake it. You can try, you can use all sorts of aids to romance and sexual fulfillment in RL and SL, but in the end if you want a real connection with someone, it has to be there for everything to work properly. Getting to know them, getting to understand who they are, what they enjoy and don't enjoy, what they would ike to do... how fast or slow, rough or smooth, heavy or light... takes effort and communication.

Once you know them better, you can have a lot of fun exploring the outer reaches of your relationship or sexuality. In SL you can expore whether the master/slave thing is interesting to you, whether you would enjoy trying an alternative gender, an alternative lifeform... you could agree to explore anything you would like to explore with another person. You need to be listening carefully... I have encountered a lot of American women who would be horrified by the idea of anything more than a virtual kiss, and a lot of European players who think a virtual relationship is slow if you aren't on the sex balls in the second hour... but you never can tell what someone's background and experience in SL or RL or their imagination has led them to expect.

Hope it works for you.
Cali

Yes, that was one of the lessons I've learned. There is no way to make a romantic night to succeed when one of the two parts is a source of interruptions.

I tried to silence all the possible interruption sources. I've even ordered a mega-computer this week to run SL as smoothly as possible. I don't want to miss a bit of these experiences. But if my gf doesn't help my efforts will be pointless. I will have to talk to her.

Thanks for the point 7 tip too. I will check it out.

Aww thanks for sharing your experiences Marzial - and I'm sorry the evening didn't work out as well as it could for you both. Some great thoughts from others on this thread too... very cool.

I know everyone's different, but I love a bit of spontaneity. It's nice to be surprised, and with so much variety in SL, it's easy to make that happen. If I was you, I'd do some exploring. Go seek out new places. Art exhibitions, forest walks. scuba diving, clubs.. anything. Just collect as many lm's as you can and put them in sub-folders (quiet places, romantic places, dance places etc) so you can find them quickly..

SL is unpredictable. You never know when you're going to hit bad lag and constant crashes at a sim, ot when a region will go down altogether. So it pays to have plenty of alternative places to jump to. Plus, you never know how an evening will progress when the conversation starts flowing... you never know what might feel right at a given time.

On the IM thing, oh this is a personal hate. I know I'm out of step with most people in SL, but if I'm in converstaion, I politely put off any incoming IMs. I think to do otherwise is rude and discourteous. Yes, best have a chat with your gf about this. Always best be open and honest imho.

You sound like a really nice guy - I'm sure future dates will work out better.

I completely disagree. Just as in rl, dating is a strategy game; the tactics are different, however, as would be the case anyway if you were dating people from different locations who expect different approaches depending upon their cultures.

Pep (Just like any game, don't expect your opposition to play by the rules; nor do you have to. )

Well. . .

First of all, you tried to do too much. Typical date for me is to do something together for the early part of the evening. Could be anything really, and lots of folks made some good suggestions.

I was a little amused that you actually allocated blocks of time to specific venues. Some of the places you mentioned I've explored for days and could easily have provided an evenings amusement on their own.

After the "night out" you get together in some cuddly spot or other to chat and see where things go from there.

Twenty to thirty minutes for the main event? Heh. We're probably not even undressed yet.

While it's good to minimize distractions, Life (even Second Life) Is what happens while you're busy making other plans. Sometimes, dealing with things that pop up--such as being chased around the grid by rolling restarts--is an adventure in itself. So, if she had RL distractions you shouldn't blame her for that. But she did drop the ball if she was handling IM's.

To the OP...If I can make a suggestion, the best and nicest dates I've ever had were when we just went to a quiet beach somewhere and set the environment to Midnight....sit on a bench side by side and just talk...no distractions, no pose balls, no fighting lag. Sometimes it would turn into a little quiet play, all strictly emoting (well, more often than not, I guess). It never takes me long to learn if the person is someone I really like that way.

That's what I call a romantic evening. My opinion