Is True Love a Reality in Second Life?

We all know Metaverses such as Second Life are an excellent way to meet new people from all corners of the world and hopefully become friends with them. This is in no way something that has just become a reality with the technological advances of the last 20 years. Back in the days when your telephone line had nothing but a telephone plugged into it people used to reach out across the globe by becoming pen pals. For those of you too young to remember this, the concept was simple. You registered with an Agency, gave them a few details about yourself and they matched you up with someone that you could send letters to in the hope that they would reciprocate. Having the international postal infrastructure to contend with meant that conversations could easily take months, but, despite that friendships became stronger, feelings became deeper and eventually people fell in love, got married, had kids and lived happily ever after.

Now, apart from maybe the occasional “thank you” note to an Auntie who has only just made the quantum leap in technology to colour TV, we all rely on the internet for pretty much all of our communications. Getting in touch and keeping in touch with people has never been easier. However e-mail, IM and VoIP solutions are already looking a bit antiquated when compared to the social interaction offered in a 3D, free-roaming environment such as SL. Now you can wander into a club, bust your best moves and be chatting to people from literally anywhere in the world. That, for me is the true wonder of cyberspace. The friends and relationships I’ve forged with people that I would never encountered any other way. But most of us can say they’ve made some good friends online but what about taking things to the next level?
Those of a cynical persuasion will tell you that online romances never work, just like office romances, holiday romances, etc. But while it’s probably fair to say that the chances of such relationships working out are reduced, but there are no shortage of cases where people have found their soul mate online. They say there’s someone out there for everyone but what if your someone doesn’t live or work in your neighbourhood? Surely the internet is just a valid as a method of meeting people as a Friday night out clubbing. In fact I would argue that online encounters are better in many ways.

For a start it’s safer. Unwelcome attention is quickly dealt with by the click of a mute button (I’m sure we all wish we had that ability in RL). But perhaps less obviously, but to me more importantly is the way you get to know people.

If you walk into a bar or club you see someone you like the look of and you talk to them in the hope you’ll have enough in common to turn a chance encounter in to a friendship or more. Then you spend the following weeks or months getting to know that person better after which you both decide whether or not you wish to make some form of commitment to each other.

On-line, however, things happen the other way round. You talk, almost anonymously at first, you get to know each other, discover if there’s a “spark” there. Then, after you’ve both decided this is something worth pursuing, you meet. This way, to me is a more genuine approach as you get to know the person not the persona, which is particularly handy for those of us not blessed with a Brad or Angelina appearance.

Whilst this is true of all forms of internet interaction the virtual worlds do put an extra spin on the situation as the initial attraction of appearance comes back into play. This clouds the situation as everyone has complete control over how they look and not everyone is 100% truthful when choosing their Avatar. I’m as guilty of this as the next person as in reality I’m not a seven foot blue fox but at least when people see or talk to me in-world they know that. It’s much harder when people go for human avatars as many use it as a mask rather than as an extension of their personality. In SL everyone is 21 and it’s very hard not to visualize the person your talking to as their avatar, which isn’t a problem if you plan to keep things strictly in world but if you decide to take it to the next level things can get complicated.

I’ve talked about how people can forge relationships online and how what was considered a little bit freaky a few years is becoming a widely accepted method of meeting new friends or that special someone. But no sooner has one method of cyber speed dating become socially accepted then along comes the concept of the virtual world to add anew twist to the proceedings.

Second Life has become the biggest and busiest of the metaverses. With, at the time of writing, in excess of 60,000 people online at anyone time. So the chances of meeting new friends is obviously quite high. And plenty of those people have forged strong emotional bonds that have blossomed into online relationships and even virtual weddings and families. Whilst this is great for the program and great for the happy couples it does raise a few issues.

Even the biggest sceptic would have to admit that SL is a highly immersive experience before long you’re drawn into the reality of virtuality. For some, so much so that they choose to put RL on the back burner in favour of the Utopian lifestyle on offer. This can be a problem for people with RL relationships if the two worlds aren’t properly managed.

Many use SL as an alter-ego and as such, nothing in their RL has any relevance in-world. It’s a big, clean slate, a chance to achieve everything you want irrespective of what or who it affects in RL.

Great care must be taken when making a commitment to another avatar. You have to remember THIS IS NOT A GAME! You’re dealing with real people with real emotions and real feelings. I would say it’s probably more important here than anywhere else for virtual couples to sit down at the start of a relationship and set boundaries and expectations particularly when either person has RL a partner. Deception in such instances can be devastating for the unprepared and cannot and should not be brushed off with the excuse of “Oh well it’s just a computer program”. Just because someone is just a bunch of pixels on your PC screen doesn’t diminish the effect of a failed relationship for them.

If you’re unattached and want to spend your time TPing from sex bed to sex bed then fine, whatever floats your boat. If you and/or your SL partner are also in a RL relationships then be adults about it. Treat it as if you were in the same room as that person. Make sure you’re both clear of the boundaries and neither of you are under false expectations about where it’s going and what, if any, future it has.

The last thing anyone wants is for Second Life to become the première online home wrecker.