Interaction, coordination, teleportation and sordid propositions

Yesterday SL was experiencing Network Connectivity Problems, and there was a wasp in my living room, so meanwhile, I thought I would write about something that was on my mind, which was interaction between people in SL. This post ended up becoming a collection of 4 different parts.


1. “That quiet one is talking through IMs”

People behave and interact with others in a quite different way in SL. Imagine this scene: a group of 4 people, three of them are friends, and the forth is a friend of one of them and has just met the others. They talk through the chat line (let’s not talk about Voice here for now), and from time to time there are pauses or moments of silence, when person number four just knows that the other three are talking to each other through IM. That’s something we don’t see in RL. It’s a way people can secretly exchange ideas without the others knowing.

Imagine another scene: two persons dancing and talking through IM to each other, and one of them is also at the same time IMing a third person.

Anyone you are talking to might be talking to someone else at the same time through IM.

And while all this is happening, at the same time you are being spammed because some asshole is using an Updates Group to talk. I belong to several groups and most of them are meant only for notification (the store owner sends info related to her store), but members often – actually EVERYDAY – disregard the group owner’s request not to use the group chat, and spam people. This is SO IRRITATING!

The use of IM has changed the way people interact with each other.


2. “She has a serious coordination problem”

Okay. Now to something else. What about people who doesn’t know how to communicate? I have been approached from time to time by very fresh newbies on their first or second day in SL and they ask for information. I’m a polite person so I try to be helpful. I answer some questions and direct them to for instance Natalia’s *Getting Started in SL Guide*, so they can find themselves all the info they need from there. But while I’m answering, the newbie jumps, walks forwards and backwards, get out of chat range, and start walking away and then seems to come back. Maybe some don’t know that typing animation means I’m answering, maybe some have serious coordination problems, or maybe some don’t have any consideration for others. When people start doing that, I sometimes consider teleporting away.

Why can’t some newbies just stay quiet for a moment while chatting to someone? If you ask a question, isn’t it polite to wait for the f*cking answer?

In same cases, it could really be coordination problems. It seems that now when people join through the SL website, it’s possible to choose to either join a community and be taken to one of those portals, or be taken to Linden Lab's Orientation Island. The Orientation Island has all the tutorials and instructions, but maybe some of those other portals don’t have anything like that. If that’s the case, the new newbies today are rezzed into SL without any knowledge of how things work! Oh isn’t that scary? That would explain their restlessness and their jumping into things. But it doesn’t excuse anyone, I still think it’s very impolite to ask a question and start running back and forth.


3. “Does he REALLY think I will teleport?”

Earlier this week I was alone at some place when I suddenly was offered teleport by a person I had never met before. I had never heard of the guy, he might have found me through a group or a search, or maybe he saw my blog or my snapzilla pictures. Without any IM, any message or contact of any kind, he sent me a teleport offer to god knows where, and he replaced the default automatic line that says “Join me at NameOfThePlace” with only this: ^^

Yes, this was his whole message.

^^

LMAO! What a f*cking looser! What kind of person approaches a complete stranger with a teleport offer saying ^^ ? Did he REALLY expect me to teleport there, to who knows where to meet him? He could only be a looser, or suffer from a serious mental problem if he was so optimistic to the point of believing that any sane girl would ever consider teleporting!


4. “What the f*ck is he proposing??”

Another kind of interaction that only happens in SL. Picture this: imagine that in real life you are talking to a real life girl who is your new friend, maybe a person you got to know through your friends or a blog, a person with whom you have nice conversations. A normal friendship at its beginning. Then suddenly you decide to offer that girl a job as an escort. Can you really imagine that situation in REAL LIFE? Doesn’t it sound completely absurd? Who would dare to do that in real life?

Apparently what is absurd in RL seems to be acceptable in SL.

Maybe it’s because girls who in RL would never work as escorts are willing to do that in SL. But how come things can get to the point that a guy assumes he can safely offer this kind of job to any girl?

This week a guy I know offered me a job as an escort, as if as it was the most casual thing in the world. I was so surprised and shocked that I didn’t know what to say, so I changed the subject. But I got upset and disappointed. He always seemed like a normal, ordinary guy, a nice person. But this job proposition offended me.

Many things in SL are way different than in RL. Way different.