My Rules for Second Life

The following represent how I "play the game". I personally think these rules per se go a long way of avoiding many, if not all of the social interaction problems commonly referred to as "drama".

RL always comes first.
Yep, close viewer and disappear. Type "gotta go" then hit Ctrl + Q (shut viewer). Whatever the case, RL always trumps SL. Always. No exceptions.

I'm busy. You're busy.
I IM you. You're busy playing with inventory. You're chatting with a friend. You're... well, you fill in the rest. Tell me. Right up front. Don't mince words. Heck, if it was RL and I caught you in the washroom (you have your cellphone with you in the washroom?) I would expect... no, I would insist you tell me immediately. Ha! We're all adults here. If you're busy, I will catch up with you later. No harm, no foul. ... Did I just hear a toilet flush?

You and I are dancing 
I am completely focused on you. No 2nd or 3rd IM chats. No profile surfing. No watching TV in RL. Likewise, you are not wearing a Bluetooth chatting with friends. I put out my hand to you to offer to dance. You can accept or refuse. But if you accept, let's dance. Together. Just the two of us.

Words
We all start from the same common denominator: we're all 20ish and good-looking. Gee, just like RL, eh? So what distinguishes us from one another? Our brains. How do we do that? Words. You've got to be able to communicate and let's be philosophical about words: If you Kant, I Nietzsche someone else. If you ain't got the prose, you don't get the pose. Male, university educated, a literary "stud muffin" well "endowed" with a good vocabulary and a sometimes wicked sense of humour spelled with a you.

Logging IM chats
You and I sit down in Starbucks for a coffee. The first thing you do is take a recorder out of your briefcase and set it on the table then turn it on. What? You are going to record our conversation? I stand up, pick up my coffee, wish you a pleasant day then go sit elsewhere. ... I am sorry you've had problems with griefers, idiots and just plain jerks. However, the majority of people I like to believe are nice people. Try not to let the bad ones spoil your view of the rest of them. I, for instance, am a really nice guy. No really, I am a nice guy. ... All the best in your world. ht :-)

Fun
I'm here to have fun. I'm assuming you're here to have fun too. If you and I can have fun together, that's great. If not, I wish you all the best in your world. I don't "click" with everybody and everybody doesn't "click" with me. I am not offended and I insist we all have fun with people we "click" with.

I am not jealous. I am not possessive. You have your own friends. You have your own life. You may even have your own job. I respect the boundaries. Just expect that when we are together, you get 100% of me.

Being Polite
Is me being polite some sort of role play? Is me being polite some sort of shtick, a game? Just because we've got avatars to hide behind, just because we are all anonymous, doesn't mean we all should or have the right to throw good behaviours and human decency out of the window and behave like fools. Each avatar is a human being. Yes, there's a real live human being behind every avatar and they deserve respect.

So is me being polite some sort of "role play"? Let's save the handcuffs for a special occasion. :-)

Your Home is Your Private Property
You are kind enough to invite me into your home, your castle, your private property. I will never, ever landmark it. I will only come back at your invitation. I will never, ever drop back when you are off-line. It's your home. It's your private property. Just because this is SL and there may be technically ways of doing things, does not mean I should do them and ignore good manners.

Friends: cleaning up your list
You and I have not spoken in a while. Maybe we spoke once, offered friendship, and have never again seen one another after that initial meeting. You decide to do a little housecleaning which includes dropping me from your friends list. No harm, no foul. After all, we can't remain friends with everybody, can we? People come, people go. At the end of the day we have only a few, maybe one or two whom we can truly call a friend. If things work out, you and I may end up friends. But let's face it, we can't be friends with everybody. It's just physically impossible. So I take no offense if you drop me from your list. I hope that if I decide to drop you, you will understand. All the best to you in all your worlds. ht :-)

Benefit of the Doubt
You and I are talking. You say something that I take exception to, that I don't like, that I find offensive. You reply, "I have no idea what you're talking about." Wait. Did I understand what you meant? Did you choose the right words and the right way of expressing what you meant? How about I give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you to clarify your meaning? Instead of me going ballistic and doing a tap dance on your head, how about I give you the benefit of the doubt and ask some questions? Come on, you're not a bad person. Should I immediately jump to the conclusion you would have deliberately said something to make fun of me, humiliate me or just piss me off?

Real Life
SL is not Match.Com and it is not eHarmony. If you came with the expectation of meeting somebody you can hook up in RL (Real Life), think again. SL is an online fantasy game. It's not a matchmaking service. If you want a date, go to Match.Com or eHarmony. After all, if my toilet gets plugged up, I don't phone an electrician, I phone a plumber. Yes, there are stories of people meeting on Second Life and meeting in Real Life however that is the exception, not the rule. Heck, I could phone the plumber about my toilet and end up having hot sex with Josephine the Lady Plumber. (Wikipedia: Jane Withers) *rolls eyes* Yeah, right.

I don't role play. I'm just being "me"
I would argue that by logging into SL, we are all role playing. Okay, you're not a vampire. Okay, you're not a furry like a Neko and you're not part of Gor or some science fiction game. But you have an avatar and sure, you're 20 something and you look really hot. Yes, you're not role playing. You really are twenty something and hot. And you have anonymity and that anonymity gives you the freedom of saying and doing what you might not be able to do in RL. Sure you're not role playing. Yeah, sure.

Immersion
As you talk with people, you get a sense that the "game" per se exists on many different levels. Some treat SL as a gigantic chat room. Some people are into role play and get involved with vampires or Gor and furries and write up elaborate character descriptions in their profiles outlining their dos and don'ts, limits, back stories, etc. Some build, some come for the music, some socialize.

For me, and this is just my particular preference, I like to immerse myself. When I go dancing, I am not a guy at a keyboard running an avatar, I am actually dancing. I will play as if you and are really dancing and will treat everything, the sounds, the sights, even the smells, the touch and the taste as being real. (Don't ask how taste comes up in dancing)

Anonymity
Anonymity allows you the freedom to do and say things you can't do in Real Life. Those things may be impossible, difficult or even illegal. But here in SL, you can knock yourself out without worry of the police beating down your door and hauling your sorry ass off to jail.

You have a gift. Enjoy it but don't abuse it. Don't go after other people about their RL (see above). They have as much right to their privacy, to their anonymity as you do. We are all here to play. We are all here to fantasize. Anonymity is an integral part of that fun.

2019-09-25

About

A little older and a little wiser observer of the human condition takes a peek at the online virtual world of Second Life. Okay, a little older is a fact while a little wiser is subjective and best left up to the jury. And to you the reader.

I'm sure a zillion blogs about Second Life have been written and many have been forgotten and cast aside. So what could possibly be different about this one? Well, first of all, it's been written by yours truly. Now that right there ought to be worth the price of admission, no? But secondly, this represents in my eyes both a curious adventure and an interesting opportunity to take a peek at the human psyche in the most unusual of circumstances. How many times in your life do you have a chance to start over, I mean truly start over?

Second Life is a long, long way from The Matrix. Others have probably beaten it to death how the graphics are poor, the technology is clunky and crashes and lag have oddly become the acceptable norm. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of people keep coming back over and over again for the opportunity of doing what they can't do in RL, Real Life.

Warning: This blog will make absolutely no sense to you if you do not play or have never played Second Life.

If you don't play golf, if you've never played golf, is sitting around with a bunch of people discussing golf going to be interesting? Heck, are you even going to understand what they're talking about? What's a birdie? A mulligan? Where is the "back nine"? I could go on and on (the list is endless), but I think you see my point. If you don't know the game, why would you talk about it, but more importantly how could you talk about it with any degree of expertise? In fact, you would probably be better to not say anything as your opinion would be so inexperienced, so naive, so uninformed, just what could you possibly say of any worth?

We could collectively come up with any number of other examples. Nuclear physics? I know nothing about that and I will defer to the Einsteins in the crowd. Yes, I know what a nuclear explosion is, but E=mc2 is just Greek to me. Or is that "Geek to me"?

I don't play tennis. While I like Love, I'm afraid that my total lack of skill in the game will mean I'm not going to get any.

So what's my warning? If you have never played Second Life, this blog is going to be meaningless to you. If you have never played Second Life, the situations described in this blog will be unknown to you. The jokes won't be funny. The activities will seem uninteresting. If you don't play chess, what the heck does Bishop to Rook Three mean anyway?

What's a bigger danger? Those who do not play, who have never played are going to attempt to connect SL back to RL. Yes, in exploring the human psyche, there is obviously a connection to us as human beings, but I warn you to be careful in interpreting SL as RL. After all, can you fly in RL? Do you "cam" around in RL? And on and on and on. SL is an on-line fantasy game and I emphasize "fantasy". This is NOT real life so don't stand on the sidelines with no game experience and start theorizing about what's going on. A game is a game; it is NOT real life. Don't believe me? In first person shooter games like Halo or Resident Evil, etc., a gamer runs around killing people, yes, killing people. Anybody plan on phoning the police because the individual in question is a psychotic nutbar who's going to go on a shooting rampage in real life?

Addendum
I started this blog back on 2012-02-29 but never put it on-line. Busy with other things. While I'm not on much these days, a few conversations as of late prompted me to share some thoughts. Good? Bad? Will I get distracted and abandon all this? RL is busy but that's a good thing. For the moment, however a few thoughts to share.

2019-09-25