Love in SL?

This is possibly the most bizarr thing you have ever read. But it is happening and I wonder if others experienced something like this, if so how is that possible? What causes this?

When I made my first steps in second life, right in the beginning, I met a girl being as confused as I was, in that first learning part of SL. We discovered togehter how all this stuff works, had good fun and we spend a lot of time togehter in SL ever since. We went shopping togehter, had fun, bought a house togehter (we live in Auroa Quays), and-when one of us is offline for more then a day we miss each other and say so. Got abit intimate but not to heavy yet

Recently our conversations have this a bit emotional touch, if you know what I mean, we show affection, exchange hughs, and express feelings. It's seems not to be a game anymore it becomes so real or appears to be. She is showing signs of jalousy - how bizarr!

She noticed that I got to know other girls in SL as well and she seamed really pissed of when she arrived at the villa and Katina (a friend - very sexy avatar ) was sitting on the pool - even refused to talk to her.

Yesterday, we almost broke up...(what a term for a virtual relationship), because she thinks I will have virtual sex with other avatars/girls and that's why it wouldn't work with us. You see that we are far away from role play here..

I thought about this and came to the conclusion it must be one of the following:

1. I need a shrink - urgently
2. We really start feeling something for each other despite of only chatting, do people bond with chatting?
3. Maybe we confuse that we do a lot togheter with romantic feelings?
4. She is playing with me - in the very sense of the word.

Anyone dares to comment?

Wolfgang

You don't need a shrink, it happens. If someone would've told me a year ago that I would fall in love and even would get married virtually, I'd probably fall from my chair laughing. And now? I'm getting married in SL and my SL bf is now also my RL bf so like I said..it happens. And yes, it's just text based but the emotions are real as well as the ppl behind the avi's. I think she really loves you and you 2 should work it out because as easy as love comes, as easy as other emotions do as well.

Mandy C

Youngster I knew already 4 years ago that what happened to OP was very possible.

@Op: Wolfgang... Don't you worry. Enjoy it. As Mandy said, the emotions are real. That is what is important!

Morwen.

I don't think there is anything intrinsically unsound about meeting someone online who goes on to become your RL partner. It happened to me, and we have been together for years.

I think though it is a good idea to ensure they are contactable offline, by phone etc, and perhaps if practical meet each other before you let yourself begin to feel emotional need. I have also sadly known people who were devastatingly let down by falling in love with someone who - well frankly who was just a fantasy character and whose online persona was nothing to do with reality.

Also what if you are in love with an online person and your computer breaks or something? I think you need some offline contact details as well as the online ones before it's really sound to consider it a real relationship.

Well, i forgot a little detail: We both have partners in Real Life. I am married , she is living with someone but in some kind of a krisis situation. I tried to propose SL is SL and RL is RL and to never mix the two. She has a different views of that she can't do that completely.

She asks questions about my relationship with my wife but does not seam to have a problem with the fact, whilst seeing another femal avatar in my pool drove her carzy - apparently, who knows if that was real or just role play. But then again; i don't really know what type of feeling we both have, it's just so bizarr. Mayb she is just role -playing a relationship, who knows.

Exchanging off line contact details would be E-mail, phone is, because of the situation not an option. Imagine my son takes the phone and afterwards shouts through the house: "Dad, it's for you, its Ginny your Sl girl friend...."

We live in different countries by the way

Wolfgang

Youngster huh? Ok ol....no, not gonna say that *runs*

Mandy C

Ok im gonna step out of my box here !!! I dont usually and tend to keep myself to myself but after reading the OP i decided to tell my tale

Please believe that the attachment that you feel for people in SL is completely real, Nobody needs to see a shrink all is normal !! The thing with interent based relationsips is that what you get is actually the real person .. lets face it you can have the most beautifull looking rl person with the personality of sock and do not people become ugly once you get to know them and vice versa?? ok with that in mind for the most part we are attracted to the character of a person, so there for it would very easy to meet some one in SL and fall completely in love with them with out ever physically meeting them.

I meet my Husband 10 years ago in a chat room , this is back in the days of purely text based chat , i mean you were lucky in those days if the screen refreshed it self without having to push enter to see what the next post was going to be , any way we started talking and finding that we had things in common, and we did as you Op , when one wasnt online we'd miss each other and wait for the other one to log in, and spent many hours daily and most of the night come to think of it deep in IM's One day we decided that we should really meet up in rl .. bit daring back in those days but we met in a safe public place , and nothing was any different in Rl to what it had been in chat the feeling the emotions were exactly the same although the nerves were awfulll we spent the day together and decided to continue our relationship, we were married a year later and ten years later we have 2 children 8 and 6 years old and are still looking forward to growing old together..

My point being is that as far as emotions and the attachments that we make to other people in SL are real and should be treated as such ... every AV HAS a real person sat behind it controlling it putting their personality into it , and they too can be hurt by whats said and done to them in Sl as much as in RL.

Wolfgang, your own marriage will suffer - be prepared for that. As you focus more of your attention on how soon you can get back to your computer to be with your friend, and as you start to save up news to tell your online friend instead of your wife, your marriage will suffer just the same as if you were having an affair in real life. Just think through whether you are prepared for that.

I was gonna post on this but it seems as though Cordelia got there first....

I AM the real life husband of Cordy, the person she referes to.

In a nutshell ....... SL isnt a game of role play, you dont Role Play falling in love do you,

And regardless of what both of your RL circumstances are there is obviously emotions there, i mean TBH who would go on to SL to find a relationship unless they were deliberatly out there to break hearts .. you really cant help falling in love with somebody so the best thing to do in my honest opinion is.....

Dont put your self into situations where you have deep emotional ties with another person unless you CAN, becasue allthough the physical relationship isnt there ... the MENTAL and EMOTIONAL relationship is, and those depths really do FAR MORE damage than just getting caught doing the dirty on a friday night after a few drinks.

I know every circumstance is different .... And I know my wife talks to guys and she knows i talk to woman BUT we work together in SL, in fact for US its brought another dimension to a vey healthy and happy marriage so we dont feel the need to fill an emotional void.

In Nutshell

Emotions ARNT role play ....
Affections ARNT role play....
Heartache ISNT role play....

and just a point .... if you think I dodnt know what im talking about ..... I neaqrly lost my marriage over talking to a girl a little TOO much, and from my experience im glad I learnt from that experience so I tread carefull both for me ... for them ... and for the one I love ... my wife

I couldn't agree more with that. 2 months ago, I started a similar thread, with a similar story. Only I was the noob and he was my hero. For 6 weeks, I got a love letter by e-mail every day.. and like the guy in the OP, it became terribly hard to distinct RL from SL.

One thing kept missing... I never managed to obtain RL info about the avatar of my dreams. There always seemed to be some (more or less acceptable) explanation of why he couldn't give me his real name, or phone number or address. All I had was a sexy avatar, an anonymous e-mail address, many loveletters, and loads of the most romantic encounters a girl ever dream of.

And so, merely on the basis of the latter two, I lost my reservations, and fell totally in love, inspite of the missing other info... only to find myself alone now, robbed from my illusions, and very sad. I guess one could state, if it looks to good to be true, it probably is..

So yes, before you get emotionally involved (and I mean, invest real-life emotions), you should make sure that you in some way know who you are dealing with. Trust works both ways! Otherwise you might end up with a huge emotional hangover and broken heart. Rest assured that the fun of SL easily gets lost that way!!! At least for some time.

I took awhile for me to get over it, but from now on, SL is only about fun for me, and if I do get a new SL BF, I will make it clear to him right from the start that this is ONLY SL and I do no longer intend to mix my SL with my RL.

Based on own experience, just my two pennies....

Thanks Marty and everyone else

Very wise words indeed. Do you think it's possible to have a SL only affair? How do I find out if the other part (her ) is really emotionally involved or is indeed role playing?You say people don't role play falling in love...are you sure? There are good actors out there....

Marty @Cordy please visit me (us) in Aurelia Quay one day.

Regards

Wolfgang

The one point most people forget is that SL is not a game--it is at its heart a form of communications; and when honest communication is involved, real emotions can and do develop.

Thanks Feline to share your thoughts and I feel sorry for what happened to you. Me and her do talk about our real live. As for me, very honest and open, and I have no doughts to not believe her at all.

Wolfgang

Two words:

Limits and Boundaries

Not a good time now, but I will elaborate on this at some point in the future. Point is, however, these are real realtionships. Not to say they are the same thign as meetign up with someone out of world and doign the horizontal mombo... but emotional sharing and such takes place this leads to bonding and other such things.

One needs to be aware of this ahead of time and extablish appropriate limits and boundaries upfront.

Unless she is a really good acting role player, it's too late for that.

Wolfgang Brand

There is a difference between "telling stories about your RL" and disclosing "key information" about your RL.

I can easily tell whoever hundreds of stories about my job (a job I never had), or about my family (maybe the brother I never had), or hell, even about the cat or the dog I never had... if there's no way of checking whether that's all genuine or not. Believe me, those things do get done. It remains still a mystery to me as to what the point is for people actually doing this type of stuff, or where the kick lays, but that's a different story alltogether.

What I'm talking here is phone (you actually SPEAK with the person) or camming (you actually SEE the person), or, the ultimate, an address (you actually MEET each other).

I'm not saying your should disclose this type of RL information on SL, if you don't wish to do so, but I would at the same time not recommend investing RL emotions into somebody who refuses to. Like I said, if you take an SL relationship into RL, it works like a RL relationship, in which trust is a key factor. And trust works both ways, or at least it should.

And Wolfgang, don't feel sorry for me. In that same thread I spoke about, I was warned about this possibility by probably the same residents, but I still fell for it... And paid the price. I guess I had that coming.

Virtual experiences come very close, within the mind, to being real experiences. You learn about other people in much the same way, and learn to care about those others.

I've watched my in-world mommy meet my daddy and fall in love. Anythign that they've gone through in-world mirrors what I've seen from RL relationships. They do now, too, have some RL interest in each other as well.

For that matter, their kids - me and my siblings - love them, and vice versa. In the platonic/agape fashion. This love is felt beyond just in a role playing form, and is built upon our in-world experiences with each other.

So it's very possible indeed, and for many, can be very, very good for all involved.

Mari

I am with the other people who have already responded positively for you.. Emotions and feelings are abundant in SL.. It cannot be helped.. We are all humans.. ALL of us that are typing for these avatars on the screen...I question the honesty of some of the typing at times..and I think with good cause..however.. if you find someone that you can believe is being sincere with you and you both escalate your emotions and feelings to the point of enjoying each other and missing each other when the other is not "in world".. I think it is worth exploring and pursuing.. just like the person that posted that their present SL partner is now there RL partner and they are getting married both in SL and RL.. IT DOES HAPPEN! Good Luck to you!

Thanks Minelli

We had a nice afternoon yesterday, very romantic actually, can you believe that?

Regards

Wolfgang

It doesn't neccesarily even have to be romantic or sexual relationship to be intimate.
My SL friends I have real feelings, they do for me too. Anyone you spend any time with be online or virtual there are time emotions come out be it business, creative, social or romantic connection. It is part of being human. I had this friend I had helped, she helped me, I was working putting together this team for different things and things have worked out on some levels and some levels haven't. When I found out some t of members from group to expanded or invested in land near her village there was bang of mixed emotions, from being a failure, to envy and frusteration. I realized the land was cheaper there and more sensible for them to buy there but for moment I was very childish and human inside. We talked about it as friends, I am over it now but it at the time it really bothered me and it bothered me that it had bothered me but things worked out.

How many countless marriages were founded on being pen pals?

Possible outcomes:

1) happily ever after

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHLNG08Yfok

3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qodp0x40ZxY

And that's your Resident Answer for today.

take it from one who knows, she likes you she really really likes You.

with that said take the plunge, and enjoy your happiness. i wish You both the best of Luck and the happyness that Love can bring

A considerable number of people have meet and fallen in love in SL, then met in RL and gotten married. An even larger number of poeple have had thier hearts broken in SL.

Now

Ok, I understand I am not crazy. It seams to happen and quite often too. Does anybody have links or experience or just an opinion how it happens and how to verify it's real?

Wolfie