Observations in the last few months leave me to believe that there is much more to SL relationships that even we, people involved, could ever believe.
I saw some interesting situations that lead to such thought. Imagine when, this morning, I was told by a girl I know that she had the time of her life with her partner. However, he intends to leave this world, probably to focus on real life. Even though her words were measured, there was sadness.
More than a year ago, I remember watching a close friend hurting because her new partner was discussing at length about other women he kept meeting on the grid, just as it can happen in the flesh. It didn't seem to be taken lightly.
I even saw a few people leaving Second Life because, in the end, their virtual relationships with the other gender was ruining their real love life. Just when I thought that these people were pulling off something I thought impossible, their "other" partner brought them back to Earth.
We may only be avatars on computers, but the people that signed up are real. What they do together, what they tell each other, what they have in common can come in different form. However, it is not less real.
One of the problems that SL couples meet is routine and boredom, which are as lethal to a relationship that they are in RL. They also are lethal for the SL existence of a person. But that's a topic I will cover in a few days, in a separate column.
I bet Mitch Kapor, who was chairman of the board of Linden Lab when he made harsh comments during the SL5B closing keynote, had a clear idea of why people react the way they do to virtual relationships.
Remember this quote from him: "So the first is, in the earliest wave of pioneers in any new disruptive platform, the marginal and the dispossessed are over represented, not the sole constituents by any means but people who feel they don't fit, who have nothing left to lose or who were impelled by some kind of dream, who may be outsiders to whatever mainstream they are coming from, all come and arrive early in disproportionate numbers."
It must be because the dispossessed are over represented.
I am saying this with tongue firmly in cheek, folks ;-)
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