romance

It sounds like you come here after experience in online roleplaying games. People who have that as a first experience find it pretty easy to accept that anything that happens online is purely roleplaying and game.

Some people come here though without that roleplaying game background, or with a background of using internet chat rooms to find real life hookups. Those people come with the general expectation that what you present online matches pretty well what you are in real life, or else you are being dishonest.

So people come to Second Life with different presumptions about what a virtual community is supposed to be. There's no real default rule in Second Life about how closely Second Life and real life match up, or don't match up. A lot of people write in their profiles what they expect, and that's probably a good idea.

You shouldn't feel lost though if you think there are some unwritten rules or presumptions that you have missed. There really aren't any. The best you can do is be open about your expectations, and be aware that others may not have the same expectations as you. Doing that, you should have no problem navigating Second Life to find whatever it is that interests you socially.

sounds like a plan. i'll be myself and roll with it. good advice. i'll remember that, no one roleplays here and they take things at face value.

QFT

And even with the internet, it's just another form of communication. We're all needing communication, right?

Right.

Desmond, I'm shocked! Shocked! and glad that this happens all over the place.

Just remember, it is what you choose it to be.....

Most of it has already been well said.

My own experience is that, on the whole, role playing in SL is in clearly defined RP groups or locations, tho there are the occasional folks (like self styled SL Police RP-ers) who get the lines blurred now and then. The only time I've acted a part in SL was in the small amount of explicit RP that I've done in a well defined RP context.

But normally I take people at face value, and relate to them in the same way that I would relate to people in RL. I'm not play-acting, and I find most other people are not play-acting either. We have occupations, interests and hobbies, work and play, that are particular to SL - SL provides a context for it all; I may leave my RL at the login screen, but for me it is like my real self exploring another realm.

With relationships, anonimity often means folk will explore things that perhaps they'd never dream of trying in RL, but most would be able to tell the difference between exploring what it's like to be a Casanova in SL, and playing the role of Casanova in SL.

Or maybe not ... the boundaries can get a bit blurred at edges

Another thing which factors into SL is the physicality of it. Though SL is a visual experience, it is the visual depiction of a physical being. And if one has even one iota of imagination, somehow the avatar can become an extension of one's own physical self, (perhaps in the same way that a very familiar car become an extension of oneself while driving), so that even physical feelings can enter into relationships in SL in surprising ways.

I can understand therefore how SL can encompass a whole range of relationships, from the authentic or even sublime to the phony or truly ridiculous

You say what you like ... so I have feelings for my coffee machine. It's not a crime ... we're not harming anyone! Not even virtual coffee plants, water treatment centres or the virtual nuclear power plant used to power the coffee machine. I am not ashamed. Some of us have ... unusual ... desires ...

A Little Romance in My Life


I cannot explain the way I feel about you
Girl, you're always on my mind
Everytime I often think of you
I get a funny feeling that
I'm so in love with you
I want to give you all my love
Let me show you that I'm real
The love that I have shall never fade away
I'm tired of being broken hearted
I need a little romance in my life
Can't you see I need little romance?
Take my hand
May I have this dance
No one can love the way that I can love
I'm telling you
I need a chance
I need a little romance in my life

Keith Williams

(Ahhh a romance thread - never let it be said that I'll pass up an opportunity to look off into the distance and weep)

I personally would have classed a deep relationship with the coffee machine as sublime, so I hope you don't feel I was in any way disparaging your feelings Cherry

Ooooooh matron.

Kenneth Williams

Stop ruining my romantic atmosphere

Carry on Weeping

I agree with Amity, whose post you were commenting on, but am a little curious of your 'nobody roleplays here' stance.

Excellent post by Panacea too but Sally quoted from page one "there are almost as many answers as posters". This is it really. The crux of the matter in a partnership whether you 'marry' or not, is finding that like-minded soul who understands the sincerity or fiction of what you perceive to be.

I have two RL friends I brought to SL. They both have had broken RL marriages. One, an internet DJ 'staged' a marriage on-air to a fellow DJ for a stunt. My other friend was invited to the wedding as a guest but was horrified at the aspect of the institution of marriage, even in SL, being treated as a joke. I was stuck between them - what a day that was!!

SL is a microcosm of RL, differences in physics and visual/biological signs aside, it's a communications medium. Some will say it's a game. Some will say it's a toolbox. Only you can say what it is to you.

Oh, get a room you two!!

...and, the UK broadcaster, Cliff Mitchelmore, fell in love with his future wife's voice, whilst they were working together on a radio programme - Mitchelmore being overseas and the lady radio presenter in London.

Or maybe Sandy and Cherry should "Carry On" over the Coffee Machine .... now who is it that makes the SLmovies here?

/me thinks Deira may be sending the wrong two people to the coffee machine

Thinking more of the movie plot Sally - it will need an eternal triangle situation - hence Kelly gets a co-staring role. (I shall audition for the bit-part of Office Cleaner & Gossip, dealing with the broken down coffee machine.)

We need Trout directing of course!! I can be the crowd outside!

I'm saying nothing.

My coffee maching is sacred.

(Note for Chris Morris and Jam fans ... possibly wrongly) Richard Madeley is not allowed near it or any of the cleaners around here.

(Note for my own amusement) They won't keep me from my lovers!

/me giggles mischievously.

Oh I agree there! Poor Sandy.

Yes, both fighting over that coffee machine. Sad.

It's a hetro machine and Sandy is a boy ... plus he's not on access list yet

Wait, so the machine is a boy also? Wow, that really is sad. Pinning for someone who can't or won't return your love, at least beyond platonically.

/me looks really baffled ...